Hot Slots Getaway

Hi, my name is Tom Jiaras and I’m the owner of Hot Slots Getaway. We’ve been in business about a little over 2 years now.

We’ve been with Accel the entire time. It’s been a wonderful experience. I really like dealing with Accel. I like dealing with them number 1 because there the biggest company in Illinois, as a video gaming operator. They have a good staff, good support system, there very good with promotions. So I always try and do something, I always try and get involved with somebody that’s going to be an asset to me and they’ve been a great asset to this point.

So you’re asking me about the increase I’ve had in sales since we first open. I believe that it has to do with quite a few things.  I’m very good at marketing, I’ve been good at marketing and it’s been nice to work with a company like Accel that also has a support system with Marketing and is able to give you all kinds of tools to basically drive people thru the door and that’s what you’re really trying to do. Your trying to get people and introduce them to your location and then it’s up to me to offer good customer service and have friendly people here to do that and it’s up you guys to offer state of art games on the machines, constantly be changing the games and updating them. Were both doing our part for the increase and that’s why our business has increased.

Since we first opened our door and we started our partnership with Accel, our business has increased somewhere between 40-50% and it’s been, it’s been wonderful to do this because success breeds more success. So it’s a lot of fun when you’re doing success. It’s fun to be with a company that gives you what you need to try to be successful.

Almost always when they tell you, they’re going to be there at a certain time, they get it done. So their very conscience about giving you their word to do something and it happens. So I was concerned because this location is up on the Illinois Wisconsin border that in terms of when machine goes down or a customer can’t get their pay ticket to cash or gets stuck in the machine.  How long it might take with Accel in order to keep to my customer happy and they’ve been very efficient we’ve had very few problems in the 2 1/2 years and nothing I would even, like if I was writing a yelp thing or something. Nothing I would bad mouth Accel, because I would give them an A on everything they’ve done.

We do have a relationship manager, her name is Tatjana. She’s very personable, she comes in. She not only works with me but works with my staff. She’ll bring in all kinds of things at different times when we need something. It’s a matter of what the laws are at time, because the gaming commission, gaming board changes the laws here and there. There’s been times where they can give us T-shirts and coasters and stuff like that. We’ve used those. She’s been given us ample ones of those. There’s been times where we’ve done punch cards and various promotions. She’s always on top of it, in terms of trying to help us to be successful. It makes it very easy to work with. I actually had a relationship in my other location where I was with another terminal operator for the first 5 years and I would say that the relationship with Accel, when I started here, when I was 3 ½ years into the other relationship. There now with Accel as well, because Accel is a very well-run company.

The collection teams comes in at our location once a week, sometimes twice a week. There in, there out. They are not, they don’t cause any problems with any of the customers. It’s kind of a seamless process that happens. You would think if they’re coming and pulling out money that there might be issues, there is none.

I am located in Richmond, Illinois which is up on the Illinois/Wisconsin border 10 miles south of Lake Geneva just to give you an idea of where we are, Lake Geneva Wisconsin. Because we are a border town and Wisconsin doesn’t have legalize video gaming, there are a lot of locations in Richmond and there’s a lot of competition in Richmond. So what sets us apart is number one we are very conscience of customer service, our relationships with our customers. Accel is very supportive in trying to do what they can to helps us increase those relationships. I think that’s one of the most things, from our perspective, as the owner of the location, to drive people to come in and have a pleasant experience and play gaming. Accel is really my partner, we have a partnership, because they succeed when I succeed and I succeed when they succeed in what their supposed to do and the partnership has been a really good one and I would give them a solid 95. Somebody could always do better but that’s a pretty solid grade.