I’m honored to be one the judges of SBC Awards. SBC Awards is big event where gambling world will select the best operators, affiliates and suppliers in many different categories. Big gala event will be in early December in London where we’ll know which companies have made the best work this year. I don’t know yet in which categories I’ll act as a judge, but I’m now going to describe what kind of operator would be the best one in Sports Betting business. I’m not going to mention any companies by name, because I’m not willing to cause them any good or bad reputation.
How to compare different companies? What are the most relevant features which we should think about? How to analyze and compare actions in different legal and business environments? How to compare business results and for example responsible gaming features? There are much more very relevant questions. So, to act as a judge it is not so easy job but at the same time very interesting duty. I’m sure that all those companies which are now there as candidates in different categories are good companies but how to find out the best ones?
I have three main principles which I’ll analyze. The first one is: is company acting by law? That will be “yes or no” question. If company is not following laws and rules, it doesn’t matter how well it’s managing in other ways. I won’t appreciate that kind of company at all. It should be the industry standard in all businesses that everybody is acting by law. The companies which are operating without licenses can’t be the best ones, because they try to get advantages compared to the honest ones and that’s not fair.
The second question is: how good business results operator has reached and what kind of other results they have achieved? I would like to know what kind of goals they have had and how well they have reached them. I’m sure that all candidates of SBC Awards have tried to get as good business results as possible. There is no monopoly company among those candidates and it’s obvious that all those operators have more or less business driven culture. It’s not relevant to just look at the final profit, because there are huge and smaller companies in same categories. I would like to understand how well they have managed to run their businesses in different markets and competitive environments.
As you hopefully have noticed from my previous blogs, I believe that “customer is the king (or queen)” and companies should serve their customers as well as possible. So, the third question is the most important to me and it’s: which operators have attended to their customers in the best ways? I know that it is almost impossible to know that, but I’ll try to analyze that anyhow. To do that I should first understand what the most important features from customers point of view are. There are different kinds of customers in Sports Betting business, but I believe that most of important features are same for all customers.
I could think about that question from Sports Betting operator’s point of view, because my company is offering Sports Betting and due to that I should know answers to my question. But I think that the better way is to ask customers’ opinions about those important features. I have been active Sports punter already more than 35 years and I have my own strong views about that. In “old days” I used to be big punter but nowadays I’m not using so big stakes anymore so I could think myself as a normal Sports Betting customer. Although I might be good customer to analyze what is important in Sports Betting, I have now utilized my friends who are active punters.
What are the most important things for active big punters when they think about excellent customer experience? I was surprised how similar lists I got from different guys. I could almost use the list which I first got from my friend Vesa N. – maybe I have too similar friends…? It’s obvious that operator should be trustable – that’s “must have” feature but luckily not anymore very relevant because customers could trust on the most of operators. But it seems to be important that everything will work in smoothly way. Money transfers should work quickly in both directions. It’s normal that you could move money to your betting account very quickly, but it’s not so common that you will get your money back easily from gambling operators. It’s big difference if you have to ask many times to get your money and if it will take many days to get them. Easiness to use betting site seems to be also important. Customers would like to find out matches and specific betting objects easily. It really matters how many clicks you have to do – as less as possible would be optimal.
Customers are also willing to have clear rules which should be similar for everybody. They would like to know for example how much they can bet in different matches and betting objects. They seem to be a little bit frustrated in cases where they are trying to make 100 € bet and company is accepting 5 euros. I believe that they understand the risk limits of operators, but they wonder why those rules are not clear for the customers.
As a summary I would say that I’ll try to analyze how easy it’s to use the betting sites of different operators and will give most points based on that fact. I’ll also try to find out information about money transferring processes of different betting operators. I think that operator which is not willing to move money back to customers can’t be among the best operators. So finally, it won’t be anything like rocket science to find out the best Sports Betting operators. I’m ready to do that! After five weeks we’ll know who the winners are and probably I’ll write about that then.
Gambling Guru 