MGM Resorts International—the parent company of hotels like MGM, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Aria—selected Fueled to lead the way on a mobile-led company-wide digital transformation.
MGM Resort’s initial RFP sought a vendor to create an app focused on direct room bookings. During our diligent research process, Fueled helped MGM identify an approach to their app that would drive downloads and loyalty program registrations, promote engagement with the brand, and provide users with a sleek and seamless experience.
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3,000,000
Visitors
50,000
Rooms
13
Resorts
Our Approach
We interviewed MGM guests, casual visitors, top-tier loyalty program members, on-the-ground resort staff, and a wide range of corporate stakeholders. We also gathered new quantitative research and reviewed existing MGM reporting to develop statistically significant conclusions.
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Our Big Discovery
We learned that the biggest pain point for guests of Las Vegas resorts is the hotel check-in and check-out process. We set out to build the ultimate hotel check-in/check-out app, but as we strategized more ways to upgrade and streamline MGM guest experience, we incorporated a few more features.
Building the World’s First On-Demand, On-Site Mobile Check-in
We spent weeks planning and testing a new mobile check-in system that would combine in-app check-in with the rollout of new door lock hardware to enable mobile keys. With this system, guests can actually get to a hotel and go straight to their room, no waiting in the check-in line required.
Guests can also confirm reservations and pay for room upgrades or early check-in using the app. It turns out no major hotel group in the world had yet rolled out an on-demand on-property check-in system without guests needing to give advance notice.
Digital Room Keys
To make the new on-demand, on-property check-in system as seamless as possible, we needed to figure out a way to get guests into their rooms without needing to wait in line for room keycards. To do this, we worked with the client to incorporate door locks that could be opened with digital keys that lived in the new app.
My Stay & Curated Content
We used location data to help guide the customer around Vegas, promoting attractions, events, and restaurants within the MGM Resorts family.
After a guest checks in, they have access to a contextual, personalized home screen. The app provides guests with entertainment and dining suggestions powered by a range of data points, including their current location and existing itinerary. Reservations can be made in-app, skipping phone calls and long box office lines.
Uniting the Brand
One of the main issues the client faced was that although MGM Resorts existed as a parent brand, most guests were oblivious to MGM’s connection to the property they were staying at. Our research indicated that users were frequently unaware of the many related resorts that their M life rewards entitlements were valid at.
MGM Resorts’ goal was to promote their brand as a unified entity of multiple properties by rethinking their app and also by updating their website to house content from all properties. They needed to elucidate to users the full scope of the rewards program and to foster cross-selling between properties, events, restaurants etc.
Our app design had to portray MGM Resorts as an umbrella brand, while simultaneously complementing and showcasing each hotel individually. To achieve this, we let the content do the talking. Unique to each property yet consistent overall, the content was crisp, clean, and digestible with a bold use of photography, so the users would be engaged and excited.
M Life Rewards
When we learned that only a small percentage of first-time guests were signing up for MGM’s rewards program, M life, we knew we could design the app to drive a massive increase in program registration and engagement. The data required for check-in and for enrollment in M life are nearly identical, but the processes had always existed separately, yielding predictably low participation.
As part of the new mobile app, Fueled architected a system where users signing up for mobile check-in simultaneously enrolled in M life, removing the highest friction point of enrollment and dramatically boosting program signup.
Making Check-Out Easy
The app keeps track of your room charges, allows for late check-out, letting you pay your bills when you leave. To incentivize further engagement with the brand, we worked with MGM to incorporate discounts on future bookings made through the app before check‑out.
Backend Integration
Our app gathers data from users as part of a single, seamless flow, but intelligently routes it to a wide array of systems, from core hotel operations to rewards, marketing, security, and concierge.
We set the requirements for Accenture’s API gateway to communicate with each microservice, ensuring their services met our needs and were delivered before feature development.
Cross Platform Experience
Our Android team was one of the first to use Kotlin to create a large program. This language produced an app consistent to our iOS efforts. The design team worked alongside our devs every step of the way to ensure a cohesive design between products.
