Professional Support Staff: How to Build an Effective Team

The fight for clients’ loyalty is quiet and imperceptible. Often, only those companies that have managed to put together a motivated crew can succeed.

The Department’s Role

Professional customer support is one of the main success factors of any iGaming portal.

Specialists of the PricewaterhouseCoopers company claim that the poor quality of this service is the main argument against visiting digital platforms for 47% of clients. On the contrary, increased attention and a personalised approach to players make the GGR (gross gaming revenue) grow by 16%.

Gamblers do not immediately contact support staff. When they get acquainted with an online casino, they first study information about the licence, available entertainment, as well as lucrative bonuses, and then launch the slot and take part in tournaments.

The need for high-quality customer service usually arises at the time of the withdrawal of money. At this stage, the site requires users to enter personal data or undergo identity verification. Besides, a punter may want to link their bank card to the casino account, and here, they also cannot proceed without detailed instructions.

Whether a player will become a regular online casino visitor largely depends on the professionalism of the staff. Therefore, the competent organisation of the department is an integral part of the overall audience retention strategy.

Operators are unlikely to be able to build trust with users if there are problems in the service’s work. Excellent technical assistance, on the contrary, will help entrepreneurs quickly gather a solvent customer base and increase the profitability of their projects.

Internal and External Customer Support

Already at the stage of launching a gambling startup, its owner needs to decide whether they will create a separate division within the company or outsource this task. Both options have pros and cons.

Technical Support Inside the Casino

The key advantage of this approach is that, in this case, a strong, professional, and dedicated team is built. Its members share the brand’s values, are well-versed in the peculiarities of the market, and have enough knowledge to help clients solve problems of any complexity level.

Operators can build closer relationships with support service employees and easily monitor their work and make adjustments to it. Over time, many specialists in the department may become top managers of the iGaming firm due to their vast knowledge and experience.

At the same time, organising such a department within a company requires entrepreneurs to make huge investments at the start. Business owners will need to complete the following steps:

• office space rentals;
• acquisition of the necessary equipment (PCs, laptops, scanners, and phones);
• installation of specialised software (sometimes, this can be a separate CRM module as part of the gambling platform);
• search for staff and its training;
• drafting detailed instructions, and much more.

All these actions involve significant time and money costs. If operators are on a tight budget at the start and cannot pay much attention to the creation of separate departments within their companies, then it would be better to outsource the customer service.

External Client Support

A similar option is often offered by providers of casino platforms and content and, less often, by vendors of hosting and financial aggregators. There are also consulting firms that specialise in remote assistance. They can make a special telephone line for gaming sites and assign a team of employees.

External support requires a fixed payment for each month. Entrepreneurs receive well-trained and experienced staff.

A huge advantage is that business owners do not need to worry about renting premises, purchasing computer equipment, or searching, training, and retraining personnel. They can focus on marketing and strategic project development.

Many outsourcing companies maintain several channels of communication with clients, including:

• telephone service;
• contacts through email and social networks;
• answers directly on the casino website.

Customers independently select priority options depending on their behavioural patterns and geolocation. In some countries, gamblers prefer to communicate with support staff via a call centre, and in others, they use email and popular instant messengers.

Operators can share such remote specialists with other iGaming startups or receive dedicated managers. The second option seems more attractive, but the monthly fee will be higher.

How to Build a Strong Technical Support Team

The creation of this department includes several stages:

Hiring

Land-based casinos pay great attention to finding croupiers, dealers, and administrators. They must be polite, friendly, competent, and have a pleasant appearance. In recent years, similar requirements have been put forward for personnel who work online because they affect the image of a gambling platform.

Key requirements for employees of the unit:

1. Experience in the entertainment industry. This includes an understanding of how the basic processes in an online casino work (attraction of users, registration, account replenishment, selection of games, and withdrawal of prize money). Well-versed managers tend to feel especially confident in the first months of work, while their novice colleagues find themselves more motivated.
2. Knowledge of foreign languages. This is the official one (of the country where a gaming site operates), and also there are 1–2 additional options to choose from: English, German, Swedish, Romanian, etc.
3. Understanding the basics of psychology. Managers must be patient and flexible with different types of clients. In critical situations, players may behave aggressively and arrogantly or, on the contrary, experience anxiety and disappointment. The task of technical support is to reassure gamblers and offer them several kinds of problem-solving.
4. Good communication skills. This is the ability to make another person talk, carefully listen to them, and ask clarifying questions. Staff must maintain a friendly atmosphere in the casino, be attentive to details, and demonstrate genuine interest in each client.
5. Analytical skills. In this case, we are talking about the ability to quickly analyse the situation and understand the users’ problems. This may be a simple failure that caused an automatic return of the bet, large-scale malfunctions in the work of an iGaming platform, or dishonest behaviour on the part of customers.
6. Stress resistance. Managers communicate daily with many clients with different requests and moods. It is important for specialists to remain calm in any situation, as well as to be friendly and competent.

When working with gamblers, social and communication skills always come to the fore. A true professional may not have specialised education or proper experience, but they must get along with players, demonstrate high productivity, and be interested in the work process.

Education

At this stage, entrepreneurs introduce technical support staff to online casino features. They include detailed information about the brand, the marketing strategy, available products, payment systems, and rewards.

All data can be presented in the form of tutorial instructions, such as:

• registration and verification rules;
• features of financial services;
• bonus policy for different categories of users;
• the procedure for responding to technical failures and abnormal behaviour of casino visitors;
• actions in cases of detection of fraud, etc.

Organisation of Work

Gambling platforms accept bets 24/7, so support staff should be available at any time of the day. In this case, the number of their tasks increases significantly, and their performance decreases. To prevent this from happening, it is important to provide for shifts and assign several employees to each of them.

Experts do not recommend that people work there longer than 5 hours. Besides, one manager shouldn’t communicate with more than 5 players at the same time. This negatively affects the quality of service. Clients do not receive proper attention and professional advice.

It is worth taking care of increasing the number of employees during the period of peak traffic. Most often, these are evenings, weekends, and holidays.

Performance Evaluation

If the active audience of an iGaming platform is continuously growing and the return on investment is increasing, then the staff works well. Users are happy to contact technical support on a wide variety of issues, trust the opinions of managers, and recommend the casino to their friends and acquaintances.

The department’s functioning can be assessed by the following criteria:

• ART (Average Response Time);
• the share of closed requests in the first call (First Contact Resolution Rate);
• the number of overdue and renewed applications;
• prompt problem resolution;
• the number of gamblers consulted by the manager per hour, shift, week, or month;
• the amount of positive and negative feedback, etc.

One of the most popular metrics in gambling is the percentage of customer satisfaction. It shows the share of positive evaluation ratings compared to the total number. This parameter can be calculated both for the entire department and each hired specialist.

The Right Encouragement

It is possible to increase the efficiency of technical support by implementing motivation programs. Most operators offer financial and non-financial rewards. Together, they increase the employees’ loyalty to the company and improve performance.

Bonuses are the most common type of way of financial incentives. Their accrual can be made every month, once a quarter, or at the end of the reporting year.

Many brands offer some kind of a prize depending on the current income of an online casino. If, in a particular month, the profit of an iGaming platform becomes higher, then all personnel receive a financial reward.

Work on weekends and night shifts are paid at a separate rate in accordance with the labour law of the specific jurisdiction. This is considered an additional salary and doesn’t count as a financial reward.

Non-material types of motivation include:

• free meals;
• training at the company’s expense;
• discounts and gift certificates to visit gyms, SPAs, and educational centres;
• medical insurance coverage;
• additional paid leave;
• corporate events and staff onboarding, etc.

The Main Things about the Creation of a Support Service

• High-quality work of the division affects customer retention, as well as the formation of a loyal client base and a positive image of the iGaming startup. Most often, players ask for help when they deposit or withdraw funds.
• Operators can build a team of specialists or outsource the service. In the first case, entrepreneurs need to hire people independently, and in the second situation, they reduce costs at the moment of the casino platform’s launch.
• The creation of a support department consists of several stages. This includes searching and selecting personnel, training, and organising work. It is important for business owners to distribute the load on the department correctly.
• Evaluation of the effectiveness of technical support helps to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the service, as well as motivate the most valuable managers. To calculate and analyse results, KPI metrics are used.

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