Online gambling is a highly competitive marketplace, but partnerships between suppliers can also play an important role in improving the user experience and drive player volumes and activity. John Foster, Enteractive’s Head of B2B Sales for Europe and Asia, explains how the company welcomes the collaborative approach.

It is widely acknowledged that the online gambling industry is ultra-competitive. In operational terms, to compete means ensuring processes are fully optimised and operations run with utmost efficiency and, especially relevant to B2B companies, integration projects are completed on time and to budget. 

All this is true, but equally, one of the striking features of the digital betting and gaming sector is that it relies on many collaborative partnerships between competing suppliers. 

For example, many online sportsbooks work with two or three sports betting data providers as a way to increase the reach of their product portfolios, manage their trading models and achieve a good overview of market movements and potential liabilities. 
In recent times this was demonstrated by Spotlight Sports Group with its BetTech Ecosystem report, which provided a compelling overview of the many different companies that compete, collaborate and strive to grow the online sports betting industry.

Competitors, partners 

Such a model has numerous advantages as it provides operators with a variety of content and is part of the evolution of the industry. 

An example could be a digital CRM provider, such as Optimove, partnering with a conversion and activation specialist, such as Enteractive.  Both are highly complementary to each other, working in the CRM space, but there’s no direct competition with one another in delivering services to help operators maximise their player retention rates and lifetime values.

In terms of value-add scenarios for operators, it is easy to imagine CRM journeys setup with automated SMS, email and push notifications. In the event that Optimove and Enteractive collaborated, you could add phone calls at the end of the engagement cycle where a player is unresponsive to the text messages or push notifications.

By complementing each other’s products, Optimove with its online CRM services and Enteractive with its direct engagement with consumers over the telephone, the combined approach to CRM activities provides extra scale, reach and a highly targeted approach to customers through these coordinated actions. 

Complementary services 

Enteractive’s focus is on customer activation and engagement which means we could partner with other suppliers that provide services such as payments. This enables both the suppliers and the operators, in other words all parties, to benefit from the partnership. 

For example, a player may have tried to deposit funds but for whatever reason the deposit is failing. They would then be classed as a Registered Non-Funded account (or RNF – the industry acronym).  Enteractive’s approach to direct engagement currently helps operators convert more of these RNF accounts, with a call from a native speaker (for that player’s location) to try and assist them in making that deposit. This is another area where collaboration between suppliers could add massive value for an operator without additional effort, as well as giving both suppliers a more unique and more functional offering.

Such a scenario would also give a valuable overview of the sector as a whole. Imagine you are a payment provider in the iGaming space and Enteractive is speaking to 8,000 players a day: we may find a trend in a market where players are struggling to make initial deposits. We can guide the player through the process. 

Alternatively, we know that certain players are having issues in a market with one payment method and we are able to assist them with a different payment method. This is beneficial to operators because players can then play, but it also optimises costs, drives retention and harnesses scale to drive player volumes and activity.

Synchronicity 

Making customer onboarding and activation easier by synchronising services with payment methods is an obvious way to reduce friction points and streamline the user experience. 

The digital CRM approach of using email, SMS and push notifications supply only one-way strategies,  determining what works through trial and error or experience. Adding to the mix the more unique approach that Enteractive offers means operators can also benefit from one-to-one interaction with their customers.

Additionally, when service providers such as Enteractive partner up with others and build on their data and insights, they’re able to optimise operators’ business processes and add an extra layer to the player experience.  In turn, this means more revenue for the operators, and more business for the service providers and suppliers.  It’s a win-win! 
From a broader perspective, the online gambling market is more competitive than ever, while increased regulatory requirements have added costs and narrowed operators’ scope for action. In this environment, it is imperative to understand how the user experience can be improved and value added to it through symbiotic partnerships between complementary providers.