10 out of 10: Head of Call Center from iGaming about industry and why to call players
Most people probably would have associations with a call center like these: Wolf of Wall Street, a huge office, last century outdated approach. And this is not without reason. Just a few years ago, marketing was completely different, and taking orders by phone with telephone sales were at their peak. However, today we have all moved online and into the world of digital communication. Even communication with relatives is in Facebook, what to say about business. Mails, push, chat bots and other new mechanics of interaction with clients have integrated into our daily entrepreneurship routine and are showing good results. Why do some modern casinos still call their players and, even more, believe that call-center is irreplaceable part of casino? We’ll let’s find out in today’s interview with Maksym, the head of this department in gambling project.
Monoup launches a new thread in our blog for iGaming and game brands where we will offer insides and secrets for successful projects from industry professionals. We will talk about optimizing processes and minimizing costs for operators by implementing a really working approach in practice. The series of interviews will cover different parts of product operation and every professional will answer 10 questions to help make your product “10 out of 10” level.
Today invitee is Designer in iGaming, let’s move on:
Q: Please tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you are responsible for within your work scope.
A: Hello! My name is Maskym and I, as you already know, am Head of a Call Center (CC) in online casino. I now have more than fifty people in my team under my direct management. These are CC operators and their QA (Quality Assurance). Also, I often interact with other departments.
Q: Our already traditional question to our guests: do you gamble yourself? How did you come to the industry?
A: Sometimes I play slots or poker, but I can’t call myself a gambling type of person. I got into the industry by accident, actually. I was looking for a job and reached out to friends if anyone heard about open vacancies. As a result, friend invited me to an interview for support operator role, where I realized that it was an online casino and I had to call players.
Q: So, starting with basic. Please elaborate what is the purpose of having call center (CC) in modern online casino. A call center really sounds a little outdated, because now we are in digital era and communication in general has changed. How much, do you think, players need this oral communication?
A: First of all, CC is required to work with live client base. Now there is a huge variety of casinos on the market for every taste and the goal of this direction is to maintain strong interest of active players for our project, and to return those who no longer play for some reason, plus also introduce new customers to our product. A set of things, actually, can be covered by a proper call center.
Regarding digital/live communication and the obsolescence of calls, it depends on the specific GEO and mentality of the players. In some countries, emails actually work better, and players ask to call them less. But in the majority of countries, it is still not possible to completely replace human communication with a chatbot.
Q: A bit of controversial questions, follows from the previous one. Is the call center primarily about player support with humanity or sales? How to effectively build this department fulfils set goal?
A: In my opinion (and this is how it works in our project) a call center is, first and foremost, sales. We have guys who are responsible specifically for support of players by phone, but the main support in any way is on support chat operators, and only exceptional cases are dealt with calls.
Answering your previous question, I mentioned a very important aspect —mentality of players. It is very different not only depending on GEO, but even within the same country. You can’t sell something to a person if you don’t know how to talk with this particular person. There’s no script in the world that will help here (although scripts are very useful for working with returns of customers). As for building an effective call center, people you hire and right organization of their work are of key importance. Our CC is divided into departments: active players, reactivation lost players, incoming/outgoing support, VIP, deposits and QA. And each department specializes directly in its segment of players and working only with them. This allows us to achieve our goals as efficiently as possible and really concentrate on them.
We all have to understand that most players come to casino to relax. Gambling is a hobby just like fishing or video games. But unlike the above-mentioned activities, playing casino in many countries is considered something shameful. So many people hide this from family and friends. In this case, the only person with who player can discuss his game: his victories or losses, is a call center agent, who is almost personal psychotherapist. Many players choose our brand for this reason and even know all our operators. Some even have personal preferences about who exactly they would like to communicate with. I think it means a lot.
Q: Which client base every casino should strive to build and why? How does call center help with this?
A: Not a secret that casino works to make a profit, but on the other hand also, to provide certain services for players. And the more loyal your players are, the more they like to spend time in your casino, the more profit you will get. As simple as that. Client base should be as loyal as possible, and here the call center plays a very important role.
First of all, we collect feedback about product functionality — which features are good and which are not that much. Also, we gather personal information about the client — his job, hobbies, family etc. An experienced call center operator can use these data to communicate clearer with a player. If we have a player who is into sports cars and likes to listen to New Wave, we certainly can offer him bonus on the Wild Racer slot, because it includes all of that. And there is a huge chance that such offer will be interesting. Because it reflects player identity. We build, one might say, friendly relations so players will always return us. Therefore, I believe that a call center allows you to break the “player-operator” barrier and establish a stronger connection on a long run.
Q: Do you think tournaments are effective tool in retention? You might have real direct feedback from players.
A: You know, this is really a good point. Many brands now miss this opportunity to communicate with players. But in reality, good tournament is a chance to build strong interest to your product and differentiate yourself from others. As for active players I recommend to use it, and for lost audience as well! Because if someone left your product before it doesn’t mean he will never return. Use your new features and offers to motivate them come back and see what is going on your website. Active and “alive” website is best retention tool.
High rollers are often looking for a chance to show off and compete with other players. As I already said, there are a lot of brands right now that have almost same game providers, and player literally can play slots anywhere. That is why it is critically important now to entertain users. So, you can stand out from the rest with almost the same options.
Q: What is the role of call center in the company structure and how closely are you connected with other departments? How do you set interactions and KPIs?
A: If to talk about KPIs and remuneration — it’s based on sales and we pay percentage from sales volume. Call center generate profit so they are paid accordingly. My apologies to the affiliate and marketing department, but I think that bringing user to the website and getting FTD is the simplest thing we are in. But when you want to retain your user and build long lasting relations — you have to do something very different. And this is a great piece of work that call center does, because it works with live client base every day. Many would disagree, but I believe that if we stop our call center — more than a half of players will just leave and opt another product.
We also have team members who communicate with depositors to find out the reasons of failed deposit attempts. They can assist a player with making deposit in real-time. We also gain valuable feedback about our payment systems from them so this is double benefit.
Q: As a leader, how do you build your team and what kind of people do you bring into? How do you determine during the interview stage whether a person is suitable for making direct calls to players or not? There is undoubtedly a high level of stress, and it is also important to know what to say at the right moment when the conversation is at a dead end, and this is not about everyone.
A: As in any job dealing directly with people, especially with dissatisfied people, we have plenty of stress, so the ability to keep yourself under control is one of the key skills for a call center operator. It is important not only to calmly listen, often to threats, but also to show empathy to the player.
We have a VIP player who, after a loss, can call his manager and talk to him for an hour exclusively in obscene language and then hang up. A few hours later, he calls back and apologizes for his behavior. We need to understand (and I always tell this to my guys) that they, first of all, are the moral support of the players, no matter how much they may swear in communication. These are our clients, and they bring us income. A good call center employee is a good psychologist, and then only a salesperson. We have very experienced QAs who, during the interview, model various situations with the candidate. And by person's reaction, it is usually immediately clear whether they will be able to work in casino or not. I always look at these personal characteristics and not at the years of work experience in the CV.
Q: Of course, we couldn't help but ask this question: what was the most memorable situation with a player that you or perhaps someone from your team had?
A: We have a lot of stories; every day, something happens — we could make a whole rubric for you, ha-ha. Among the amusing ones — in their profile, a player can set a greeting for themselves when a casino employee calls. This serves to avoid cases when operator mention casino someone else picked up the phone.
There are players who set quite extravagant greeting, for example, "my master," "friend from party," "secret admirer," "favorite auto mechanic," and so on. We, of course, allow operators to ignore offensive/inadequate greeting, but if the player is regular, then no one will miss the chance to call and say, "Alex, this is your gay friend from the gym”. This even helps to make atmosphere in the office more relaxed.
Q: Which next steps in your career you plan to take? Is that retention or another direction?
A: We have a somewhat unusual hierarchy for the industry in our company. In my opinion, if to grow inside the company, further career growth for me is managerial positions of a broader scope to influence entire product, such as Project or Product Manager. I would like to develop in this direction; I think I have the right background, and I know product well, as do the call center operators. Therefore, I am currently studying the product part and related things to improve my hard skills.
In conclusion, we would like to thank our guest for the informative conversation and such interesting answers to our questions. We can confidently say that calls have not died, but continue to bring benefits to business in iGaming industry. From payment systems for gambling, through personal communication, it is always possible to get a live response about the payment flow and improve it on the spot. In audience experience research, this is an indispensable tool. Being on the same wave with your client is what many online casinos strive for, and this can be achieved through active communication.
