Gotta gamble on CRM

Funny how morality colors when crossing cultures. While in George W. Bush’s America, crackdowns are happening in the internet online gambling sphere via the anti-internet gambling bill, The British-based industry publication Online-Casinos.com is running a story entitled, “UK Online Casino Sites Need To Put More Zing Into CRM.”

And the piece is no mere opinion piece, either. Instead, the article reports details of a study undertaken by customer service specialist Talisma. The independent audit of the 100 most popular UK online gambling sites showed that customer service from these sites is fairly poor.

In August, Talisma employees posed as customers, sending an email to every site in the audit with a simple inquiry as to whether betting via the internet is legal in the UK. Reported Online Casinos, “The support offered by the 100 gambling sites was less than satisfactory, with: 40 percent of e-mails simply ignored; 16 percent of the calls made to the sites not answered; 30 percent of online internet chat sessions requesting advice not replied to.” Plus, “Only four percent of sites were able to provide users with a service that allowed them to search online help documents for solutions to their problems.”

The audit further analysed the sites over different communication channels. Eighty of the websites had “disparate and unintegrated systems supporting different communication channels, meaning that staff were not able to access the necessary information to solve enquires, creating frustration in the customer and probable lost business.”

Declared Jon McNerney, vice president international operations at Talisma, “Many organisations are failing to integrate their online services with customer service operations. When you consider that the online gambling market is becoming increasingly competitive and that customers are able to move to a competitor with a click of a mouse, organisations need to start perceiving customer service as a differentiator rather then a luxury.”

How competitive is it? Well, Online Casinos quotes CRM Today statistics showing that the online gambling industry will be dealing with some £5.2 billion (approximately $10.3 billion) in 2006, and that 76 percent of the UK’s 29 million internet users gamble on a regular basis.