Cross-Channel Experience for Yam Yams!

I have a friend Luke, who is a big gambler, big to me anyway as he’s happy to squander more than a month’s worth of wages over a weekend on horses, football and whatever else is happening at the time. He’s an alpha male, he’s loud, he can down a few pints and he enjoys life.

So when I think about my world of marketing, brand and user experience, I often look at him and consider that he is somewhat absolved from the matter, almost that he is not capable of being understood as an individual or won over as a customer on the grounds of such squandering.

All this changed in the past week when I saw him placing his bets on his new iPhone. I have spent many years listening to him pass through the layers of telephone security necessary before he can place his next winner at Windsor, Ascot or Wolverhampton. So to see him with an iPhone was somewhat of a surprise – almost as if someone from the back-roads of Dudley shouldn’t be seen using such shiny new technology!

So far I have used plain English speaking, guessing that not all of you will understand ‘Yam Yam’, the language of the Black Country. But knowing there are only few bookmakers who have launched an iPhone application I asked him who he was betting with, and he told me. “Why is that?” I asked. I asked the question because I knew that for many years he’d used a different bookmaker who he’d always raved about and to whom he is very well known through its call centre. Both bookmakers already offer good iPhone applications.

I found his response somewhat interesting and thought that it really demonstrated how, if an organisation considers user experience as truly cross-channel, it can really begin to gain competitive advantage and win customers.

He said: “I’ve recently started a new job which keeps me out of the office or on the road half of the time. This means that after doing my homework on any given day’s races, I am ready to place my bets from around midday, where I’ll either be sitting in front of my PC or on the mobile in the car.” “OK”, I said, “but why are you not using your usual bookmaker that also has a good iPhone app?” Because, he said “ just recently I’ve started playing poker too, and this new bookmaker is the only company that will allow me to switch funds between sports and poker easily on the mobile. I can bet in the day on the horses on the PC or on the iPhone, use my winnings on poker at home in the evening and in the morning I will have the same funds accessible on my iPhone to bet on sports again. What’s more, if I win on either I can walk into the bookies and collect the cash over the counter and have it in my hand. I can’t do that with my old bookmaker.”

That last line really struck a chord, “a penny dropping” moment as I heard it described this week. Invariably the projects in which Foviance has traditionally been involved in tend to be in silos, and I believe this is commonplace amongst the majority of our gaming clients where the different businesses think and operate as such. What we are finding more and more however with people like Luke and other customers, is that they become loyal to a particular operator not just because they have the best sports book or the best casino, but because the experience of using the different betting methods and administrating their funds is seamless, particularly across multiple channels.

Being able to move money between different betting accounts, having single sign-in security, talking on the telephone about an individual’s account rather than just sports book or just casino, collecting money from the High Street – these are all important to any player or punter. Brands getting this right can make the difference between having loyal customers with healthy cross fertilisation across games, or a few customers using a single game now and again.

This article was writtern as part of the Foviance July/August Newsletter