Wendy Li is the Loyalty Operations Manager at SKYCITY Hamilton. She has held many different positions within SKYCITY, including Food & Beverage, Finance, Marketing & Gaming and has been in the company for a total of 8 years. Being a real people person, Wendy loves to interact with every customer to gain ideas and feedback from them which she then communicates to her work colleagues. Read more to find out about her.
Tell us about the different jobs you’ve had within SKYCITY:
I was a Food & Beverage attendant and also became a Cashier while I was studying at University. After that, I left SKYCITY for two years to take a Marketing role with another company. I went back to SKYCITY two years later to work as a Financial Analyst. After two years, I moved to Marketing as a Loyalty Executive. After another two years, I progressed to my current role as a Loyalty Operations Manager which still works closely with Marketing and the Loyalty space.
Briefly describe your current role:
I work very closely with our Gaming Manager and the main area of my work is focused on the operational side of our Loyalty programme. I manage the team at the Premier reward station and the VIP Host also reports to me - we look after all our VIP Platinum and VIP Black card holders for both table games and gaming machines. I also look after our gaming machine team, they also report to our Casino Shift Managers and we all work closely together. I also help create events and promotions in the VIP area.
What do you enjoy most about your current role?
I like what I’m doing now because it has a good balance between working behind the scenes, working with Marketing, and also getting to understand the customer’s perspective on what they want from us. I’ve worked in Finance, Marketing and now in Gaming, I find that it helps me when I interact with our customers. I’m a people person and I like to talk to customers wherever and whoever they are. I like that I’m able to communicate customer feedback to Marketing and help come up with promotions and ideas. Overall, I enjoy being able to make a contribution to a company that I have worked in for a long time.
What challenges do you get with your role?
I’ve learnt that you can’t please everybody - sometimes it’s a challenge to please VIP customers while keeping the company’s best interest at the same time. Also, there could be a promotion which looks good from a Marketing perspective but it doesn’t work from a Gaming perspective and that can be challenging. Some promotions can also be difficult to set up from a mechanical perspective. But at the same time, businesses will have challenges and it’s about how well we can work together as a team.
What did you do before your current role?
I worked overseas where I was mainly an office admin and then I moved to the real estate industry for two years. I was also the Marketing/Operations manager for Big River catering specialising in offices deliveries, wedding events, the Chiefs and other sporting events where I’ve learnt a lot about Hamilton and hospitality.
What do you enjoy about working at SKYCITY?
Number one is the room for progression. SKYCITY is a well known brand and I’m proud to tell people that I work for SKYCITY. If you want to change cities, there can be opportunities to do so in our other sites. I also enjoy the people that I work with and I have been very lucky to have supportive managers to learn from. Overall, it’s a good company to work for and SKYCITY looks after its staff well.
What type of personal qualities do you need in this role?
You need to be approachable, people skills is more important than what you know. I really developed that genuine interest in working in the Casino industry because I love the thrilling side of it. You also need to be passionate and be honest - you need to have good values and ethics to be able to work in this environment.
What makes SKYCITY different to other companies?
There are so many aspects to the business. I’ve been able to work in Food and Beverage, Finance, Marketing and Gaming. For anybody that starts as a dealer, they don’t have to stay in the Casino space because they could move to management, food and beverage, and the hotels in our other sites. SKYCITY is also very diverse and culturally rich, everybody gets treated equally.
What do you like to do in your own time?
Two years ago, we did the leukaemia and blood cancer SKYCITY tower stairs challenge. That made me think to invest more time in health and fitness so I do spend a lot of time at the gym. One thing I am also passionate about is studying natural health and I go to different health and well being seminars to learn more about it.
Thank you for sharing your story Wendy!
