How Real Money Casinos can turn Customer-Centric

Did you know there are well over 3,500 internet gambling sites on the world wide web to date? Even today’s most active iGamers would be hard pressed to name more than 10, maybe 20 real money casinos. Anyone with a strong business sense can imagine just how hard it is to compete in that industry.

As with most markets, you have your front runners, like Ladbrokes, William Hill, and 888. Then you have distinguished brands like Royal Vegas, who’s reputation dates back to the turn of the millennium. And, of course, there’s powerful media-driven sites like Paddy Power and LeoVegas.

These real money casinos rely on their reputation and superior brand awareness to draw in customers. But once those customers arrive at the website, there’s little else to separate these big wigs from the other 3,500 sites flitting about cyberspace.

Real Money Casinos Compete for Loyalty

Competing for customers is hard enough these days. Just getting a person to visit a website is difficult. Making a first impression – one that’s strong enough to convince them to register, deposit and play – is even harder. But the most strenuous task real money casinos face today is retaining a player’s loyalty.

Mark Bradshaw, Head of Mobile CX for William Hill, explained the situation at the 2017 Customer-Centric Innovation Lab in Sydney last week. After a while, he said, players begin to see every website as being the same – the same promotions, the same games, the same payment options.

In order to stand out from the ever-growing crowd, Bradshaw said operators have to be able to do something different. Something that creates value for customers. He did not, however, go into any specifics on what would attract and retain players.

I have a few ideas myself, and I’m sure many of you regular players out there could come up with some interesting proposals as well. Maybe together, we can convince operators to integrate some unique new tactics that would hold our interest.

How To Earn New and Loyal Players

If we look at the most important needs of today’s players, we find that all real money casinos are fulfilling these needs in the same way. The promotions are the same – big matching bonuses for first time depositors and some free spins on the pokies. The payment methods and terms are basically mirrored, as are the VIP schemes.

Let’s look at a few ways operators could change things up to attract more loyal members.

Instant Cashouts

The one thing the vast majority of players want most is their money. In a land-based casinos, when you win, you can immediately cash out and walk away. Online, however, casinos love to hold onto a player’s money as long as they can. When a payout is requested, they wait 24-48 hours to process it, hoping the player will reverse the withdrawal and wager it away.

This is a huge issue for players, and operators could make an enormous impact by allowing instant cashouts. Players are so frustrated, operators could probably get away with a 1% fee on instant cashouts, and most players would happily pay it to get their money now.

Discount Shopping for VIPs

Who doesn’t love shopping online? What if you could use your winnings from real money casinos to make purchases online at discount prices?

Imagine if Royal Vegas teamed up with Amazon. You could go to the banking page, and instead of clicking ‘Withdrawal‘, you click something like ‘Shop at Amazon‘.

Depending on your VIP status with Royal Vegas – or maybe you could trade comp points for deeper discounts – you could get a 5%, 10% or 15% discount, and maybe free shipping on top of it. You could even purchase Amazon Prime or one of their other premium services at a discounted rate. How awesome would that be?

Calling All Real Money Casinos

These are, of course, just suggestions, but I happen to think they are pretty good ones, and I for one would love to see more real money casinos employing tactics such as these. I hope all you operators out there are listening. Give us better promotions, incentives and cashout times, and we’ll love you for it!