SPONSORED EDITORIAL
SPIELO G2
LOYALTY FOCUS
Know your customer
William Scott of SPIELO G2 talks to eGaming Review about the importance of understanding customers in order to earn their trust and loyalty
As the egaming industry becomes increasingly more crowded, customer loyalty has become one of the hardest challenges facing an operator today. But how can an operator successfully leverage one of their greatest assets; knowledge? To ?nd out more, eGaming Review talks to William Scott, vice-president of SPIELO G2. eGaming Review (eGR): Egaming is an increasingly crowded marketplace. What impact does this have on engendering customer loyalty? William Scott (WS): Customer loyalty is essential. It is far more cost-effective to retain a player than to acquire a new one. And a crowded market means a more ?ckle player. However, just because someone is spending less on your site, it doesn’t mean that they have less disposable income – it is more likely they are spreading it between multiple sites. Operators must work hard at customer loyalty, using not just incentive programmes and promotions, but also building on their emotional connection with the brand. It’s simple: loyal customers will return. Every effort should be made to keep them happy with the level of service they are getting – and out of the clutches of competitors. eGR: How do you strike the balance between attracting customers and holding on to them? WS: Both areas must be treated with respect; understand your goal and manage, analyse and act accordingly. Having battled so ?ercely to attract new customers in the ?rst place, you should never (unless desired) lose them. A signi?cant proportion of budgets should be ring-fenced for the purposes of retention. In order to maximise lifetime values it is essential to have a strong, competent, knowledgeable and, above all, customer-focused operations team looking after the player at every step of their journey, with systems in place that help support them to meet their objectives. eGR: What can you tell us about the relative values of new customers and retained ones? WS: Both new and existing players are equally as important, but they must be managed differently. With any gaming brand there is a natural churn rate so it is imperative to constantly replace and grow the player database. New players tell us a lot about the shape of the market, help to adapt strategy and increase market share. Retained players are priceless because the more they trust the brand the more feedback they will give on what they like and do not like. Returning players – and therefore recurring revenues – act as the lifeblood which provides the baseline revenue to fund product development and to facilitate sales into new territories and reach new customers. eGR: How important are marketing services and the use of social media in building customer loyalty? WS: Building customer loyalty is all about developing relationships and that is virtually impossible without the use of at least a basic level of marketing, but you need to have specialists who understand the market and target demographic and are able to deliver the message effectively. Social media, when utilised in a careful, co-ordinated manner, is an invaluable tool in the overall mix; one which helps with engagement and generating better personal relationships. However, it needs to be managed separately as it is a two-way communication tool that requires its own strategy. eGR: What is SPIELO G2’s approach to building customer loyalty? WS: Our ethos is to research, analyse and act. We help the operator by having systems that allow them to get to know the player better. You must do more than just look at their habits within the gaming space: we ?nd out about their outside interests as well. A player will give you their loyalty when you understand them as a whole and not just in one area. Overall, building loyalty takes a long-term, ?uid approach, which combines the use of backend data analysis tools as well as faceto-face feedback. SPIELO G2 has developed market-leading player segmentation models to allow operators’ CRM teams to communicate in a more targeted and effective way to increase values and gain a better understanding of player behaviour across the various markets in which we operate.
William Scott is vice-president of SPIELO G2. As part of this role, William has been responsible for the launch of North America’s first legal poker network and driving the company’s egaming strategy across all channels and markets.
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