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CUSTOMER SUPPORT QUALITY AUDIT – ONLINE CASINOS
Q2 -2013
CSQA | Q2 2013
Page | 2
INTRODUCTION
The casino industry is constantly evolving and the ability of casino operators to adapt and change with it will significantly impact their future and
continued success. Multiple technologies are converging to increase the demographics that have access to products and services being offered, as well
as the types, format and engagement potential of the products able to be offered. However with the increase in visibility and exposure of products,
consumer demands are also changing and evolving. As a result, traditional approaches to doing business will become increasingly less effective in the
next two decades.
A large focus in the future will have to be the customer experience. It will no longer be enough to simply offer a product, because there are so many
hundreds of competitors out there just a few clicks away. For online entertainment such as casino gaming, brand loyalty is already low. As competition
intensifies and new technologies further lower the barriers to entry, this will continue to be the case and new ways will be needed to extend life time
values and create loyalty. Offering extra money back will only capture specifics consumer segments and is known to create very little brand loyalty.
Operators need to differentiate in other ways; they need to create excellent experiences for their customers through their products and their services.
Customer support teams publicly represent our brand and are one of the major interaction points between the customers and the operators. Positive
and negative experiences of individual consumers are now shared on a global stage on a daily basis through the many platforms out there, including but
not limited to social media, networking sites, review sites and internet news agencies. It is therefore important to maximise the positive experiences in
order to foster loyalty and drive word-of-mouth acquisitions, whilst minimising the risk of negative exposure.
This report looks at the experience we had at the customer support operations in the online casino industry when dealing with a new user. It evaluates
the status quo and highlights trends within the data. A detailed analysis of your individual scores to identify key improvement opportunities is available
for operators who are included in the report, as well as a private assessment versus the operators in this report.
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METHODOLOGY
For the benchmark we used a Mystery Shopper approach to gather the required data. Each assessed room had multiple new consumers sign up to their
service and ask questions of varying complexity and difficulty, designed to identify trends in consumer experience and resolution technique. The
assessment is performed only in English, as the dominant or secondary language for the majority of European markets and covers a broad range of
quality of service metrics and accessibility evaluations. Additional languages, verticals and target groups are available on request.
The scoring model uses a tiered system, as shown in the image below, with groups of bottom level sub-category scores combining to create the mid-level
category scores, which in turn are used to generate the final score for each participant.
Where no response was received to a query, a score of 0 was applied. Each category and sub-category is assigned a percentage weighting that
represents how much influence it exerts on the overall score. There are six mid-level categories, not including “Extra Mile”, which sum up to an overall
score of 10/10. The final category ‘Extra Mile’ allows for up to an additional 2 points, making the overall score out of 12 possible points.
LIMITATIONS
This benchmark only assesses the English language support for new users to the online casino vertical. Many organizations have dedicated support for
different languages, additional product verticals or for VIPs specifically, which are not assessed in this analysis however can be done on request.
For the purposes of the benchmark we have included a selection of operators from various software providers and included a combination of casino-only
and multi-vertical operators to ensure we cover the majority of different business structures offering casino product services in our industry.
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ASSESSED CASINO OPERATORS
The operators below were included in the assessment and will be assessed again in each future assessment:
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DETAILED ANALYSIS
Not covered in this assessment are the detailed analyses of each individual operator’s scores. This can be requested by individual operators included in
the report, or operators who would like to have their performance assessed against the industry can request a private assessment. Contact details can
be found at the end of the report.
RESULTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The in-depth analysis provides deeper insight into the make-up of individual scores and where key improvement opportunities reside. As a medium
score can result both from consistently average response quality, as well as from a balanced combination of high and low quality replies, an in-depth
view can help operators identify problem areas and implement improvements.
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You: what about favourite games; can we save them somewhere so we can jump straight back into them when we log in next?
Phil: You have to download it everytime, because game has updates daily
You: right, not sure what that has to do with saving favourites?
Phil: Not related Im afraid
REAL EXAMPLES
In the detailed analysis we also dissect the actual e-mails and live chat conversations on which the scoring was based to outline specific shortcomings or
areas of excellent performance.
Please use the contact details on the final page of this document if you would like further details about your results, would like to be included in
future benchmarks or if you have any queries about the products on offer.
Cut off by support agent. Sloppy formatting resulting in broken links.
“Contact Us” with no contact details.
Support teams that just don’t care.
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SUPPORT QUALITY AUDIT – CASINO Q2 2013
OVERALL RESULTS
OPERATOR OVERALL ACCESSIBILITY RESPONSE
TIME PRODUCT
KNOWLEDGE PRESENTATION PERSONALISATION FRIENDLINESS
EXTRA
MILE
32RED 8.8 7.6 8.4 8.4 9.2 8.4 7.4 3.1
INTERCASINO 8.2 6.7 7.7 7.9 9.1 7.9 8.1 1.7
BETSSON 8.1 6.5 8.6 7.5 9.0 8.0 7.3 1.5
BET365 7.9 7.2 7.3 7.0 8.7 7.9 7.2 2.5
BWIN.PARTY 7.7 6.3 7.5 8.0 9.5 6.7 7.1 0.9
CASINO770 7.6 6.1 3.6 7.9 8.8 8.7 8.2 2.3
MRGREEN 7.6 4.6 5.9 7.4 9.7 8.4 7.7 1.6
LADBROKES 7.4 7.4 5.4 7.0 8.9 7.7 7.2 1.6
BETFRED 7.1 6.8 5.8 7.1 8.1 7.3 6.5 1.2
BETWAY 7.1 6.1 5.1 6.9 7.8 7.3 7.2 2.1
PADDYPOWER 7.0 7.6 5.0 7.3 8.0 7.2 6.4 1.0
CLUBWORLD 7.0 7.0 7.7 6.0 7.9 7.0 5.9 0.9
888CASINO 6.1 5.7 2.3 5.8 8.6 7.4 6.5 1.5
WILLIAM HILL 6.1 7.1 2.9 5.3 8.8 7.2 6.1 1.2
3DICE 5.8 6.5 4.2 6.5 6.2 5.1 4.5 1.5
BETFAIR 5.1 5.2 2.3 5.1 6.4 6.3 5.4 0.6
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RESULTS BREAKDOWN
The next sections of the document will present the results of each of the seven top tier categories that were scored for each casino in the assessment.
They will include commentary and observations identifying trends within the data.
The seven categories, in order of presentation, are:
Accessibility
Response Times
Product Knowledge
Presentation
Personalisation
Friendliness
Extra Mile
Each of the above categories and their respective sub-categories have been thoroughly analysed for each operator independently in order to identify the
key areas where improvement potential exists. This data was then assessed from a top-level view to produce observations on the results data as a
whole, with breakdowns for each category and relevant examples lifted directly from the testing.
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1A. ACCESSIBILITY BREAKDOWN
Accessibility examines how easily a customer can contact the support team. This covers which communication mediums are supported, such as live chat,
email and telephone. It also includes the coverage that is provided, such as 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It examines the following sub-categories:
Channels supported
Advertised Availability
Website FAQ
The Channels Supported sub-category covers the communication mediums that are supported, such as live chat, email and telephone, whilst the
Advertised Availability sub-category looks at whether the service is offered “24/7” or has limited hours.
Website FAQ performs a high level examination of the FAQ or knowledge base on the site, if one exists. We look at it from an ease of use perspective
and evaluate how easy it is to navigate and understand based on the design, as well how comprehensive the information is. For the purposes of this
report, games rules are only considered to be one part of a value adding self-help section and search functionality is also taken into consideration.
On the next page is the breakdown of scores across the three Accessibility sub-categories:
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ACCESSIBILITY RESULTS – TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL CHANNELS
SUPPORTED ADVERTISED
AVAILABILITY FAQ
PADDYPOWER 7.6 8.5 10.0 8.0
32RED 7.6 9.0 10.0 7.0
LADBROKES 7.4 7.5 10.0 9.0
BET365 7.2 8.0 10.0 7.0
WILLIAM HILL 7.1 7.0 10.0 8.0
CLUBWORLD 7.0 8.0 10.0 6.0
BETFRED 6.8 7.5 10.0 6.0
INTERCASINO 6.7 6.5 10.0 7.0
BETSSON 6.5 6.5 10.0 6.0
3DICE 6.5 7.0 10.0 5.0
BWIN.PARTY 6.3 6.5 10.0 5.0
BETWAY 6.1 6.5 10.0 4.0
CASINO770 6.1 7.0 10.0 3.0
888CASINO 5.7 2.5 10.0 9.0
BETFAIR 5.2 5.5 5.0 9.0
MRGREEN 4.6 6.5 5.0 4.0
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1B. ACCESSIBILITY RESULTS
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1C. ACCESSIBILITY OBSERVATIONS
Below are some observations on the results for this category and sub-categories:
The FAQ sub-category makes a top level evaluation of the knowledge base and/or self-help sections of the operator’s website. Well designed and
informative self-help sections can provide a number of benefits such as decreased incoming query volumes and a powerful knowledge repository for
your support staff to utilise.
There were two key observations to come out of this category:
1. Almost all operators offer the same contact channels (email/tickets, live chat and telephone).
There were very few operators who deviated from the standard contact channels, despite there being additional options out there that may be more
suitable or appreciated by different locales. For example, very few operators utilise any kind of social media as a means of offering support. There were
also operators who only offered a very limited number of contact channels, opting instead to only use additional contact channels on their own terms
rather than those of the customer.
2. Larger, multiproduct operators typically have superior self-help and FAQ sections.
There are definite opportunities for many of the online casinos to reduce inbound volumes and provide a significantly more comprehensive knowledge
resource for their customers. It was seen through the assessment that some of the self-help pages cover half a dozen “common issues”, taking up less
than half a single A4 sheet of paper on the site. Often these were heavily biased towards depositing or included “About Us” information.
These pages are an effective method for providing customers with the means to help themselves, eliminating customer waiting times and reducing
inbound volumes. These self-help sections are often undervalued; however they are essential for effective scaling because of the relatively low cost of
implementation versus the high value added through volume reductions and superior customer experience.
Often prospective customers will not even contact customer support before making a decision as to whether to join a room or not, instead choosing to
browse the site to gather their first impression. This is often evident from website usage analytics which identify new visitors to a site and their
subsequent actions. At all times, on the website and through the support teams the customer should be shown the quality of the service they will
receive. With technology making it easier to provide intuitive and comprehensive knowledge resources, consumers expectations are naturally higher and
if these prospective customers see little other than obvious marketing materials, then they may look to a competitor who has taken steps to be
transparent and inform them suitably before commencing play.
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2A. EMAIL RESPONSE TIMES
This category examines the speed of email responses from the various support teams. It has been moderately weighted and falls between Product
Knowledge & Accessibility in terms of the impact it has on the overall score. Whilst response times are very important for keeping customer satisfaction
high, we have weighted it as marginally less important than being knowledgeable about the product they are supporting and being contactable by the
customer. All queries came from a newly registered customer from the UK. It does not include instant contact channels such as live chat, but assesses
only email communication, which all operators use.
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2B. EMAIL RESPONSE TIMES OBSERVATIONS
A broad spread of results were seen in this category, with some responses taking less than 10 minutes and others up to 2 days, with some never being
responded to at all. For the purposes of the benchmark, we have assumed that faster response times are better, without any considerations as to the
impact on the quality of the answers or the potentially diminishing returns of improving the response time beyond the average.
Many of the operators also offer a live chat or telephone service to complement the email channel, which could be considered to diminish the
importance of rapid response times via email. Some operators however either offered no instant contact channel or only provided the service to existing
members.
The results for response times were diverse and did not highlight any consistent trends in the industry. For some operators, the response times were
exceptionally fast whilst retaining high quality answers. Conversely some operators were slow and yet provided on average low quality answers. It was
expected that some operators would respond quickly and provide low quality answers and vice a versa and this was certainly the case for some.
The average response time overall was between 8-24 hours from the time the email was sent to support until the time the response was received. This
does not include system generated auto-replies.
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3A. PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE BREAKDOWN
This category evaluates the level of product knowledge held by the support representatives. It covers multiple areas and is the most heavily weighted
category. Providing the answers to questions related to the product offering is one of the core functions of a support team. If the support team do not
know the answers to a customer query about their product and make no effort to find out, then it would not instil confidence or create any loyalty to the
brand, which a well answered query can. The data for this category comes from both live chat and email based communication.
It covers:
Games
Account Management & Security
Financial
Client Features
Promotions
Technical
Each of the sub-categories is scored on “Accuracy” and “Completeness”. The first examines how factually correct the answer provided by the
representative is. Lapses in accuracy can be costly, largely due to the potential impact of the customer being given the wrong information.
“Completeness” looks at how comprehensive the answers are and if all points of the query have been addressed. It is an important consideration due to
the benefits of resolving queries in the first instance and positively impacting the customer experience.
The Games sub-category assesses the level of knowledge related to available game types and formats, including questions related to new slots being
added, the availability of multiplayer games, bonus and game features and RTP for slots. The Account Management & Security sub-category looks at the
level of knowledge relating to security, profile settings and responsible gaming, such as playing from different countries, setting up spending limits and
having multiple accounts sign up from the same IP.
The Financial sub-category evaluates how knowledgeable the representative is with regards to depositing, withdrawing and currency related questions.
Client Features probes the representative’s knowledge on the casino software and it’s features, such as auto-spin, sounds and remembering favourite
games.
Promotions examines how well the representative knows the currently running and future promotions at the room, including the VIP program, sign up
and deposit bonuses and their requirements. Technical assesses the representative’s ability to answer technical questions related to the games lagging,
plug-ins required to play and information pertaining to the fairness of games.
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3B. PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE RESULTS – TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL GAMES ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT FINANCIAL
CLIENT
FEATURE PROMOTIONS TECHNICAL
32RED 8.4 7.8 8.7 8.2 8.4 8.5 9.0
PARTY 8.0 7.3 7.6 9.0 7.4 8.0 8.5
INTERCASINO 7.9 8.0 7.9 8.8 7.0 7.4 8.7
CASINO770 7.9 7.4 8.0 8.5 7.6 7.9 7.3
BETSSON 7.5 7.9 7.1 8.1 7.3 7.3 7.8
MRGREEN 7.4 6.6 8.0 8.0 6.7 6.9 8.5
PADDYPOWER 7.3 6.0 7.6 7.5 6.9 6.9 9.1
BETFRED 7.1 7.7 6.4 7.8 7.7 6.3 8.0
LADBROKES 7.0 7.2 7.5 6.1 6.4 7.0 8.6
BET365 7.0 6.8 7.7 8.1 6.1 7.0 4.5
BETWAY 6.9 6.3 7.7 6.3 5.8 8.1 6.0
3DICE 6.5 6.8 6.5 7.1 6.5 5.9 6.4
CLUBWORLD 6.0 6.2 4.4 7.7 4.7 7.1 5.0
888CASINO 5.8 5.0 6.8 6.4 6.0 4.6 6.0
WILLIAM HILL 5.3 4.9 4.9 5.0 5.3 6.1 5.0
BETFAIR 5.1 6.6 6.2 2.0 6.1 4.9 6.9
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PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE OVERALL RESULTS
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3C. PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE OBSERVATIONS
This category evaluates the quality of the responses received when specific types of product related queries are made regarding the service being
provided. Below we make some observations on the data:
It has been observed that it is common in iGaming companies for multiple part queries to have questions left unanswered or acknowledged. When this
occurs consistently, it can result in increased repeat queries due to a smaller amount of first time resolutions. It was also seen from certain operators
that unregistered players would frequently not be responded to at all. This is a missed opportunity to engage prospective players by providing a positive
initial interaction with the brand.
When queries were answered, the level of detail provided was generally of a high standard throughout the industry. There were often however specific
representatives at most rooms who gave minimalistic answers that did not fully resolve the query. If these representatives were brought to the same
level as the higher performing representatives, then we would see more rooms reaching the higher scores in this category.
The importance of a support operation being well versed in the product they are offering cannot be understated, as communications relating to these
topics are often an issue that is preventing the customer from playing, detracting from their customer experience or stopping them from depositing and
becoming a real money player.
A common area where knowledge was lacking was in regards to bonus terms and conditions. It is widely accepted that consumers are more likely to
share negative experiences than they are positive experiences. As a result, a simple Google search with any terms regarding banned accounts or
otherwise “poor behaviour” on the part of casinos in relation to bonus abuse will yield many results, often misleading and lacking in accuracy. It is
therefore important that the support representatives understand not just the benefits of bonuses on which they sell the customer, but also the potential
pitfalls. Such knowledge can help to prevent incidents and negative publicity from occurring.
Another general observation was that the use of template answers was relatively minimal, resulting in inconsistent levels of detail being provided. Whilst
templates can be impersonal if not tailored effectively, they can also improve outbound volumes and the completeness of answers. They can also serve
as a mechanism to elevate less detail focused representatives to the same standard as their counterparts who provide more complete answers. This is a
definite opportunity area for many of the operators included in this assessment.
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4A. PRESENTATION BREAKDOWN
This category assesses the quality of presentation in all communication with the support teams. It looks at the quality of language and grammar used by
the support representatives, as well as the impact of the formatting on the readability and presentation of the communication.
The two sub-categories that are covered are:
Language Quality
Formatting
The Formatting sub-category evaluates how the chosen formatting has impacted on the customer’s ability to read and understand the communication.
The Language Quality sub-category looks at their use of grammar, spelling and punctuation and the impact it has on customers’ understanding of the
message and the information being conveyed. Both categories are weighted equally due their similar impact on the customer understanding or
perception of the communication.
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4B. PRESENTATION OVERALL RESULTS – TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL LANGUAGE QUALITY FORMATTING
MRGREEN 9.7 9.6 9.7
PARTY 9.5 9.4 9.7
32RED 9.2 9.0 9.3
INTERCASINO 9.1 9.0 9.2
BETSSON 9.0 8.6 9.4
LADBROKES 8.9 9.1 8.6
CASINO770 8.8 9.3 8.4
WILLHILL 8.8 8.6 9.0
BET365 8.7 8.6 8.8
888CASINO 8.6 8.2 9.0
BETFRED 8.1 8.5 7.6
PADDYPOWER 8.0 8.1 7.9
CLUBWORLD 7.9 7.8 8.0
BETWAY 7.8 7.5 8.0
BETFAIR 6.4 7.1 5.6
3DICE 6.2 6.1 6.4
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PRESENTATION OVERALL RESULTS
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4C. PRESENTATION OBSERVATIONS
This section examines the data for the Presentation category and discusses what it could tell us about the current standard of communication
presentation in the industry.
This category is an area where operators should not fall down and should always achieve strong scores. It is important to have clear communication,
which is largely related to the representative’s language skills, as it impacts the first time resolution numbers but more importantly, it has a relatively
significant impact on the experience the customer has with the support team and how they perceive the brand as a whole.
Many of us will have communicated with a support team in the past and received a garbled or otherwise hard to understand message back and become
frustrated. For new customers this can be the deciding factor in looking to a competitor or otherwise considering the support team inept. The
appearance of the communication also has an impact because it is so basic that customers expect it to not be presented in such a way that is hard to
read. As the results indicate, many operators maintained very high standards of both language and formatting, however some did not.
Some operators received poor results in this category because they have system generated elements or formatting which detracted from the
presentation of the communication. For some this was an automatic system that removed line spaces from any message from the support
representatives, resulting in a wall of text which was hard to read. These operators have a definite opportunity to improve how their communication is
perceived, especially those that are rooted in automatically generated systems that negatively impact the presentation.
These results should also be considered in light of the relatively minimal use of template answers. Template answers are an effective method for raising
the overall language quality and formatting of communication from a support team. Generally however, it was observed that even without the
consistent use of templates, the language skills were strong within most support team, even for operators whose primary focus is not on the English
speaking markets.
The methods for ensuring consistently high presentation quality varied greatly, however the overall standard of presentation was high. Whilst
presentation definitely adds value in terms of the impact it has on the customer experience, it is the far more significant, detrimental impact of being
poorly presented which can serve as incentive to implement such standardisation processes as creating template libraries and fixing system generated
formatting issues.
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5A. PERSONALISATION BREAKDOWN
The Personalisation category was included to assess how tailored the responses of the customer support team are. It looks at:
Greeting & Sign Off
Template Usage
Personal Touch
The Greeting & Sign off sub-category is relatively lightly weighted due to the expectation that a correct greeting and sign off would be used as standard.
It has been included to penalise the instances where this does not occur or where either is inappropriate or detracts from the message being
communicated.
The use of templates is also evaluated for appropriateness and examines how well integrated they are into the normal flow of the text by the sub-
category Template Usage. Templates are a very useful tool for boosting the support team’s productivity and accuracy of their responses; however they
can appear impersonal unless used correctly.
Personal Touch analyses the extent of personalisation that a given piece of communication has. This can occur in various forms, though typically we
would expect such things as the use of the customer’s name and directly tying the answers to the customer’s query.
The breakdown of the sub-category results are presented on the next pages:
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5B. PERSONALISATION OVERALL RESULTS – TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL GREETING & SIGN OFF TEMPLATE USAGE PERSONAL TOUCH
CASINO770 8.7 8.7 10.0 7.5
MRGREEN 8.4 7.7 9.8 7.4
32RED 8.4 7.8 9.4 7.8
BETSSON 8.0 7.1 9.5 7.0
BET365 7.9 7.7 8.7 7.2
INTERCASINO 7.9 8.4 8.1 7.4
LADBROKES 7.7 7.4 9.1 6.5
888CASINO 7.4 7.0 8.9 6.2
BETWAY 7.3 7.1 8.0 6.8
BETFRED 7.3 6.8 8.8 6.2
PADDYPOWER 7.2 6.8 8.5 6.2
WILLHILL 7.2 6.1 9.0 6.0
CLUBWORLD 7.0 7.4 8.7 5.3
PARTY 6.7 7.5 7.4 5.7
BETFAIR 6.3 5.6 7.8 5.2
3DICE 5.1 4.4 6.0 4.5
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PERSONALISATION OVERALL RESULTS
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5C. PERSONALISATION OBSERVATIONS
In this section of the benchmark we evaluate the degree of personalisation observed in the communication from the support teams. We highlight
possible reasons for any patterns seen in the data.
During the benchmarking process we observed that the quality of the introductory and exit text was largely varied. We saw some support
representatives having signatures that were double or triple the size of the actual support communication, making it appear that even the simplest
communication was a wall of text.
Some representatives appeared to use up to three sign off sentences or text in the same email communication, such as “Thank you.” which was the end
of the text written by the representative, followed immediately by a “Thanks for contacting us, please don’t hesitate to contact us again via Live Chat”
and then a “Kind regards,”. This highlighted the use of template signatures which had not been tailored in any way and occasionally gave the impression
that the friendly, but now obviously template signature was false. Whilst the majority of customers are unlikely to be significantly impacted by such
oversights, even if 0.5% find it off-putting in some way, then it is a worthwhile improvement because it affects all of the email communication.
It was also observed that the quality of information in the template signatures was lower than in other iGaming support teams. It was very rare for any
operator to actually provide a link to their Live Chat team in the signatures for example, which has been seen in previous assessments.
Very few operators appeared to make heavy usage of template answers to common questions. Whilst this can be undesirable as templates can be seen
as lacking in personalisation, this can be offset if the representative is given the time to tailor it to the specific query. It also has a positive impact on
outbound volumes and the consistency of the quality of the communications. Therefore a positive score could be achieved for this sub-category by not
using any templates, however we might see a corresponding drop in scores for such things as Response Times, Friendliness and Product Knowledge, as
lower quality responses overall may have been given.
The most significant observation from this category was that the majority of operators failed to react appropriately to information given to them about
the player, such as being newly registered, deposited or yet to sign up, but also about their concerns about playing at an online casino. All of these
represent an opportunity to start the process of creating player loyalty by offering a personalised service. If a prospective player is asking questions
about the product offering, then it should be recognised that this is a potential customer and the support representative should act accordingly. Such
recognition and subsequent action occurred relatively rarely however and is a widespread improvement opportunity.
Improvements in this area would likely result in corresponding improvements across all metrics as customers receive a more complete and effective
level of service.
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6A. FRIENDLINESS BREAKDOWN
This category scores the representative on how friendly they were perceived to be in their approach to resolving the query. All customers want their
query understood and their problems solved, but they also want to feel valued and welcome which is often conveyed in the choice of wording used and
use of manners. With consumer demands and expectations changing, it is often no longer enough to just be polite, especially in an industry where brand
loyalty is relatively low.
We have broken this category into 2 separate sub-categories:
Empathy & Tonality
Etiquette & Manners
In Empathy & Tonality we look at how well the support representative is seen to be understanding and appreciating the customer’s situation. This is
often reflected in their perceived tone, the language used and their acknowledgement of emotional content.
For Etiquette & Manners we look at the use of such terms as “please” and “thank you” as well as the appropriateness of the response overall. The
correct use of manners and tone can convey a show of respect to the customer and a feeling that the query is being taken seriously and handled
professionally.
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6B. FRIENDLINESS RESULTS - TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL EMPATHY & TONALITY ETIQUETTE & MANNERS
CASINO770 8.2 7.7 9.0
INTERCASINO 8.1 7.7 8.6
MRGREEN 7.7 7.3 8.3
32RED 7.4 7.4 7.5
BETSSON 7.3 7.1 7.5
BET365 7.2 7.2 7.2
LADBROKES 7.2 7.0 7.5
BETWAY 7.2 7.0 7.4
PARTY 7.1 6.7 7.8
888CASINO 6.5 5.9 7.4
BETFRED 6.5 6.3 6.8
PADDYPOWER 6.4 6.4 6.4
WILLHILL 6.1 5.9 6.3
CLUBWORLD 5.9 5.9 5.9
BETFAIR 5.4 5.1 5.7
3DICE 4.5 4.4 4.8
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FRIENDLINESS OVERALL RESULTS
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0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
8.0
9.0
10.0 Empathy & Tonality, Etiquette & Manners
Friendliness
Empathy & Tonality
Etiquette & Manners
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6C. FRIENDLINESS OBSERVATIONS
In this section we look at the results for the Friendliness category and sub-categories and make observations to highlight potential areas of improvement
or excellence.
With hard to measure qualitative metrics such as this, where the scenario the support team faces is almost always unique to the individual user, it is
difficult for operators to put in place any kind of standardisation to ensure consistent levels of friendliness. The impact, both positive and negative, of the
friendliness of a support team is highly significant however. The results seen in this assessment are similar to those seen in previous assessments, with
many support representatives being perceived to be more coldly professional than friendly, which is reflected in the scores. As this is the status quo
currently, an opportunity exists for operators who are consistently friendly to drive loyalty and word of mouth acquisitions.
It was observed on multiple occasions that support representatives were willing to be unfriendly in pursuit of their agendas, often in relation to pushing
deposits through live chat. At times we were cut off, our queries ignored and spoke with support representatives who switched between apparent
friendliness and an obvious lack of caring when our queries were not solely related to depositing. The email communication teams were typically far
superior in this respect, despite not having the advantage of being able to talk to the customer in real time. A representative who contacts the customer
(often seen during registration) or whom is the recipient of the customer contacting the company for support should under no circumstances push their
own agenda at the expense of providing a superior support experience.
The quality of the responses in terms of Etiquette and Manners varied quite significantly. This has been included in the observations because of the
serious negative impact that a failure to be appropriately mannered has on the customer experience. The testing clearly indicated that many operators
have processes in place such as training or spot sampling of the support representative’s work to nurture the consistent use of the appropriate tone and
use of manners, however we also from multiple operators incidents of rudeness, impatience and wilful complacency.
It was also observed that some operators made no attempt to be friendly, but instead have their representatives trained on just being polite. Whilst this
is never bad, it also does not have any significant on customer loyalty, which a genuinely friendly representative certainly can. A suitable comparison is
the automated routing systems many phone support teams use, which require you to answer a series of questions by selecting the right option by
pressing the corresponding key. Research has shown that customers want to deal with a person and the same applies to both live chat and email
communication. Being polite is a necessity, but it rarely adds value to the experience of the customer whereas personal, friendly engagement will and
this can be hard to achieve where robotic politeness is the only measured and encouraged quality metric.
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8A. EXTRA MILE BREAKDOWN
This is a bonus category that can allow an operator to achieve up to 12 points overall. It is only applied when a representative is seen to go above and
beyond their normal duties to provide an excellent service. It is broken into two sub-categories:
Extra, relevant information
Willingness to respond to off-topic
Extra, relevant information was applied when the representative was seen to be giving timely and relevant additional information on and around a
subject; however said information was not explicitly requested.
Willingness to respond to off-topic was included because it is often beneficial for customer engagement and the customer experience if a representative
is willing to engage in some off topic conversation with the customer. Whilst it does not support the efficiency of a support team, it does drive brand
loyalty and customer satisfaction when used appropriately.
With the increasing demographic range, diversity in brand awareness and product familiarity and the increase in likely support contacts arising as a
result, this category is becoming increasingly important to operators who wish seize market share through differentiation. Within the Casino industry
there is very little differentiation on product offering alone, with almost all operators offering a similar selection of slots, table games and live dealer
games. As a result, there is a growing focus on optimising the customer experience as a means to stand apart from the competition and occurrences of
“extra mile” behaviour in support is one of the key methods that this can be achieved.
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8B. EXTRA MILE OVERALL RESULTS – TABULATED
OPERATOR OVERALL EMPATHY & TONALITY ETIQUETTE & MANNERS
32RED 3.1 3.9 1.6
BET365 2.5 3.1 1.5
CASINO770 2.3 3.1 0.8
BETWAY 2.1 2.4 1.5
INTERCASINO 1.7 2.4 0.5
MRGREEN 1.6 1.5 1.8
LADBROKES 1.6 1.8 1.2
3DICE 1.5 2.0 0.7
888CASINO 1.5 1.9 0.8
BETSSON 1.5 1.9 0.7
BETFRED 1.2 1.6 0.6
WILLHILL 1.2 1.6 0.5
PADDYPOWER 1.0 1.2 0.7
CLUBWORLD 0.9 1.3 0.0
PARTY 0.9 1.3 0.0
BETFAIR 0.6 0.9 0.0
CSQA | Q2 2013
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0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
8.0
9.0
10.0 Extra Mile
Extra mile
Extra, relevant information
Willingness to respond to off topic
EXTRA MILE OVERALL RESULTS
CSQA | Q2 2013
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8C. EXTRA MILE OBSERVATIONS
Below are our observations on the results data for the bonus category.
It is clear from the results that there are many opportunities that still exist in regards to operators going the extra mile to provide exceptional service.
For the purposes of this assessment we were looking for representatives who did not simply provide the de facto answers, but instead seek to amaze the
customer with their genuine desire to provide the best support possible. It therefore incorporates all aspects of the communication, from the tone being
used and the impression this conveyed, through to the level of detail provided in the answers. Where representatives were seen to exceed expectations,
they would receive a score in this category.
The majority of representatives did not actively attempt to go further than was needed to address the word of the query. This is reflected in the scores
that were achieved, however were also very much contrasted by the few that did exceed expectations. One such representative took the time to put
together a very basic document showing where the various features of the software client could be found. This was instead of simply stating that they
could be found in X menu. For a customer unfamiliar with the software or online casinos in general, this would have been appreciated and began the
process of fostering loyalty in that customer.
Another representative was seen to respond to an off topic comment in a friendly way. This led to a 30 second exchange not directly related to the
product, but that had the effect of building rapport between the customer and support representative, who directly represents the brand in this
situation. Whilst encouraging “idle banter” can be bad for efficiency, the minimum that should occur is that a support representative acknowledges such
off-topic attempts being made by the customer. A failure to do so will otherwise result in the customer perception of not being valued, the support
representative not caring or coming across as robotic.
Unfortunately such ignoring of off topic attempts occurred very frequently and indicates there is a definite opportunity in the industry to improve the
level of loyalty created by building rapport with the customer through support. As long as many support teams are only incentivised and assessed on
efficiency and very basic quality metrics however, it is likely that this will continue to be the norm.
The main area where operators were seen to go the extra mile was by providing additional information. Often however this was only related to deposits
and whilst it was deemed extra mile, it did not appear to be done with the intention of providing the customer with useful information so much as a
desire to increase conversions and deposits. A common missed opportunity was to sell the new or prospective customer on the benefits of the VIP
program, the ability to play with friends at some live dealer tables or the addition of new and exciting slots.
CSQA | Q2 2013
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CLOSING STATEMENT
This assessment highlighted that there are many similarities in the quality of support provided by online casinos when compared to assessments in other
industries, but also some distinct differences. Below we cover in brief the key differences and how these represent opportunities to provide superior
support and drive loyalty through optimising the customer experience.
High quality templates and knowledge resources for the support staff did not appear to be heavily utilised.
As observed previously, there were very little in the way of template answers seen, which resulted in positive scores for the template usage category
whose primary criteria include the inconspicuous use and relevance of templates. This is to penalise the poor use of templates which detract from the
personalisation of the support communication.
In previous assessments it was seen how powerful a comprehensive template repository can be. There was nothing even approaching this standard seen
in this assessment and as such, it represents a definite opportunity for all operators, especially those with large scalability requirements. This will help to
bring consistency to the quality of information being provided by the support teams, as well support outbound efficiency and first time resolutions.
The recognition of personalisation opportunities was comparatively low.
The assessment was designed in such a way that there would be numerous snippets of information given by the customer to the support teams in order
to provide them with opportunities to tailor their responses in some way to customer profile. This could be such things as “I just signed up and wanted to
ask….” or “I saw your site and was wondering about…”. These examples both give information about the customer profile, with the former being a newly
registered customer and the latter being a prospective customer. Recognition of such opportunities should be seized by the support representative to
provide a personalised response. This could be as simple as providing a suitably friendly response and offering additional support if they have trouble
finding anything on the site as a new user. The overall standard at which this was done was low however and if the majority of operators can do this
consistently, it will support the goal of increasing conversions, both from prospective to registered user and registered user to depositor.
The quality of the self-help and FAQ sections are typically sub-optimal.
The support features are largely undervalued by the online casinos examined in this assessment. It is typically the larger, multi-product operators who
have implemented effective self-help sections. The beneficial impact that these resources can have, in terms of providing knowledge bases for your
employees and therefore increasing the quality and consistency of their answers to customers, as well as reducing inbound volumes by empowering
customers to solve their queries, are significant. These benefits increase significantly with corresponding increases in operation size and scale.
CSQA | Q2 2013
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NEED YOUR SPECIFIC RESULTS?
As the scope of the benchmark is restricted to provide only an overview of the current state of English customer service for online casinos, it does not
include large amounts of valuable insights which have been drawn from examining each operator’s results individually. This information is available for
purchase on request.
The detailed analysis contains many elements that cannot be included in a benchmark, such as:
A comprehensive breakdown of the test cases and the resulting data, to see how the results were achieved in practice and to identify specific
improvement opportunities.
Comparisons of your test cases versus those of your competitors throughout the industry, tailored to be relevant to your specific needs.
In addition to expressing an interest in the detailed counterpart report, please contact us if:
You would be interested in seeing additional verticals measured using a similar framework.
You would like to benchmark your network operators against one another.
You would like to perform an analysis in another language.
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