Retention means growth. Are you ready?
According to Bain and Co., a 5% increase in customer retention can cause an increase in profitability of up to 75%. Research from Gartner in the second quarter of 2018, showed that 80% of future revenue is generated from 20% of the current customer base for the average business. For iGaming, this percentage is probably lower, and this calls for extra attention to activate and retain as many players as possible.
To speed up your growth and scale your operations, you need to focus on CRM retention strategies alongside your acquisition strategies. New player acquisitions will increase your revenues whilst also increasing your acquisition marketing costs so focusing on CRM as a whole will ensure there is a balance in investment and ROI from both channels. So both are equally important if you want your iGaming operation to thrive.
Here are some CRM retention strategies that will help you scale faster:
1. Close your Customer Journey Gaps
The first thing to analyse is your current customer journey. Identify the current retention rate between phases. When do your players move from one stage to the next?
For example:
1. How many people hit the register button?
2. How many actually register?
3. How many use Free Play?
4. How many deposit?
5. How many deposit again after 1 week/month etc…?
Find the current retention rates at every point in your customer journey and work out your drop off rates as percentages at every step. This will help you identify your ‘customer gaps’- the lowest percentage rates will indicate where you have the biggest drop offs.
Look at your low conversion rates across all your touch-points; mobile app, mobile site and desktop site. Compare drop-off rates on different touch-points and identify ways of making the rates more consistent. Create a cross-departmental plan to target each conversion point. Usability is going to be an important part of this…
2. Check your Usability for Friction Points
If your clients access your iGaming platform from various touch-points; desktop, mobile and mobile app, identify your friction points on all three. If you use email, you will also need to check cross-platform drop offs – for example from email to mobile etc.
Check if it is as easy to deposit on your mobile app as it is on your desktop app. Do you notice a higher drop off rate on one of your platforms? Is it easy to access customer support through all your touch-points, especially around the depositing process?
Make sure the experience is as smooth as possible, and take both short-term and long-term action to boost your conversion accordingly. For instance, if people find depositing on mobile harder and are dropping off, call them proactively at this stage of the customer journey to turn more registered users into depositing players.
3. Increase proactive customer support around your customer gaps
Use more meaningful and platform consistent two-way communication.
On desktop – people may prefer to chat whilst on mobile they might want to chat over a personal call. You’ll need to watch the behavior of your customers and send them surveys to find their preferences.
It’s very important that you understand their preference as easier access to you means that while you work on improving the customer experience, you’re helping your customers overcome any difficulties or friction by directly supporting them.
Proactive calling, while the prospect is still ‘warm’ can sometimes result in higher first deposit and increase the player’s lifetime value. This first and personalised call, will also position you as a trust-inspiring iGaming provider, one who cares and does not see players as just a number.
This has been proven to skyrocket your customer acquisition ROI to 300%. Through both our NRCs activations and churned player reactivations, our customers have experienced an average 210% increase in player deposit values.
4. Survey Your Dissatisfied Players
What are you currently doing to address your dissatisfied players? Sure it may be a difficult conversation, but the insights you get from this will be invaluable. Learning how you are letting people down will help you improve your customer experience, and also address those blind-spots you might not have been aware of.
Surveying your customers is also letting your players know that you care about what they think. Who doesn’t like to be asked their opinion? It will breed loyalty, so it’s win-win all around.
5. Bring back your churned players
And last but not least, how are you treating churned players? Do you consider players who haven’t deposited after six months as churned? Are you using SMS and email to try to bring these players back in the game?
Understanding when your players stop coming back and depositing is key to improving player lift time value (LTV). Specifically targeting these segments of churned players, e.g. one-time depositing players who didn’t deposit again for over three months; two-time depositing layers who haven’t deposited for six months and also VIPs who haven’t deposited for over nine months will help reduce the brand’s cost per acquisition and will drive an increase in overall revenues for the business. A mix of email, SMS and also personal calls will bring your once loyal players back into your casino and / or sportsbook.
Want to learn about the different ways we can help you support and proactively contact your players? Contact Andrew Foster for a Free consultation on andrew.foster@enteractive.com
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