The best way for iGaming operators to keep customers returning is by seeing their site through a player’s lens, according to industry executives.
“Focus on the things that matter most to your customer, because those are the things that keep your customers the stickiest, most retained, and most valuable to you,” said Brad Jaehn, senior consultant at SEI, focusing on product strategy, digital transformation, AI, and customer experience.
Stuart Nelson, client services director and co-founder of LeanConvert, said online operators sit on an underused gold mine of data.
“Your challenge is to make yourself different from competitors,” he said. “The customer has a lot of power to move around, and you need to really focus on how to stop that happening.”
The two spoke last week at Global Gaming Expo on a panel titled “Beyond the Click: Using Behavioral Data to Grow Player Value, Reduce Risk, and Stay Compliant.” Phil Simpson, chief revenue officer at Fullstory, moderated.
Jaehn said playing sessions frequently last hours, and AI can promptly deliver a brief but detailed analysis of a user’s behavior, including friction points and challenges. Accurate interpretation of the electronic data requires an understanding of the gambling industry, he added, citing “rage click” notifications as an example.
Rage clicks are rapid taps on a phone or mouse, often coming when the user is frustrated with an unresponsive app. In an online casino, those taps could easily come from a user enjoying a slot game or going through a carousel.
Nelson said high-value players tend to get frustrated easily, so an operator can use real-time data to act before they simply give up and go elsewhere.
He told of a client with a numerous VIPs that does not accept an online deposit above a stated threshold but does allow larger deposits to be completed over the phone. The operator arranged for immediate notification of an over-threshold request so an employee can proactively call the player and complete the transaction.
“This kind of behavior is not pie-in-the sky thinking,” Nelson said. “This is our ability to react really quickly in unconventional circumstances. It’s about joining the systems together and making sure they all work in harmony.”
The proactive approach works with responsible gambling cases as well.
“Maybe somebody has triggered into irresponsible behaviors, and we need to impact that now. Sending those triggers out is super important,” Nelson said.
He acknowledged that the market is filled with “a whole load of really neat tools,” but advised operators to first figure out exactly what problem they want to solve and what KPI they want to track. Then they can shop for the best technology to resolve the issue.
He said operators with a homogenous offering of their product differentiate themselves from competitors.
“It’s your responsiveness and reactiveness to what the customer is doing right now, not yesterday, not last week, not an average benchmark over time,” Nelson said. “Right now, in the last couple of seconds.”
Because AI provides information in ways and speed not possible before, Jaehn said, the industry’s use of AI presents a “Spider-Man moment: With great power comes great responsibility.”
He suggested that operators approach AI as “conscious skeptics” and focus on issues that make sense for their business.
“Start with things that create value,” he said. “I go back to using this to identify and understand the cost of friction. Make your players’ journey better.”
Nelson said some operators are reducing their emphasis on VIPs. “They’re intentionally not trying to cater special experiences to them, and they’re trying to have a more stable customer base,” he explained.
The goal is a more even distribution of income throughout the customer base, instead of having to rely on, say, 1,000 players who enable the business to survive.
Jaehn predicted the traditional market segmentation based primarily on total bets or value will be replaced by a “very temporal behavioral segmentation” reflecting how a player’s behavior and persona changes over time. Today’s first-time user would not necessarily be a new player next week.
“At the end of the day, there’s going to be a small cohort of players who are unbelievably valuable to each of us as an operator,” he said. “We have to focus on them unbelievably strongly.”
