UK Online Gambling Survey Shows Improved Customer Service- 01-13-08

January 13 - A new studying the United Kingdom shows that customer support at online gambling sites is improving. Well, it has to. Online gambling companies for years got away with terrible service. But customers have choice, and a lot of it, so its time for gambling sites to produce the goods and deliver support that can match up with any other industry. Are they doing it? Well it depends who you ask...

The new study conducted by an independent survey company, Talisma, shows a big improvement and companies outside the UK should sit up and listen (there are still way too many companies that seem to think the fact that they operate offshore exonerates them from offers us decent service!)

100 UK online gambling websites were surveyed. The UK online gambling sector is predicted to grow by by 30 percent this year and spending is expected to read a mammoth GBP 1.6 billion by 2012.

What is most impressive in this survey is that companies have achieved real results by introducing chat technology and by improving their customer response times. The participants have increased their average score for customer response times from 54 percent in 2006 to 61 percent in 2007. This is better than other markets such as retail which scored only 51% and broadband providers at 54 percent.

Each site in the study was surveyed and awarded a score out of 100 based on a range of customer service criteria.

The report showed marked improvement against 2006 results.

Email responsiveness has increased from 60 percent in 2006 to 74 percent in 2007. The number of phone calls answered within 10 seconds increased from 84 percent to 90 percent.

Companies are starting to embrace new technologies - 42% of them now have online chat, whish was only 30 percent in 2006.

Now here is an interesting one which I found dubious to say the least. The respondents believed that one hundred per cent of email responses contained accurate information! Wha! I can single handedly bring down this percentage. Maybe the real problem therefore is not how quickly you response to my query, but that our perception of the response that customers seek may be totally different?

There were some areas where the respondents are clearly failing.

Personalization is definitely one. A mere 8 percent of the phone calls personalized, only 33 percent of the chats and 78 percent of the emails. Cross channel integration is still a mess. Only 23 percent of telephone agents and 19 percent of chat agents can see previous emails sent by a customer! Ever wonder why you have to explain the same story over and over again? Aaarggghh!

92% of companies reported to have no knowledge base to make the job of their agents easier.

Based on this study, there is a long way to go yet and companies that get their service right will definitely have a competitive advantage.

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