Following a landmark 2019, Lee Fenton, the CEO of the newly formed Gamesys Group, reveals how a recent integration of Zendesk’s customer service and engagement platform is providing the groundwork for Gamesys’s ventures/brands.

With over 1,300 employees across 16 group offices worldwide Gamesys puts a lot of emphasis on ensuring the best customer service across all your brands, how has your recent transformation via Zendesk enhanced your focus on customers?

Zendesk has set the foundation for our 360º view of the player initiatives for 2020. Being able to look at our players in different contexts while all within one unified system, gives us the ability to provide a personalised experience for our players based on their preferences and needs. Our players may prefer to engage with us on social channels, receive a call-back or search for the answer to their issue without ever engaging with our advisors. Zendesk has allowed us to introduce these options and enhance our existing channels increasing our teams’ capacity.

Zendesk has also provided us with an invaluable insight into what our players expect from our customer experience team. This enables us to personalise our player’s experience even further as we roll-out the next phases of our customer care platform. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that we provide the best experience, via the right channel, within a safe and responsible environment.

Gamesys’ customer service transformation required collaboration across multiple teams to get buy-in and transform their service centres, what’s the key to keeping everyone on message?

To understand the magnitude of collaboration that was needed to enact this change, 21 teams actively contributed to the successful selection and 82-day roll-out of Zendesk. The success of the initial rollout came down to personal investment, a willingness to engage and constructively work through competing priorities and a commitment to improving both the experience and toolsets for our players and advisors.

Not many companies have to provide market-leading customer experience to a global player community, what are your top priorities in terms of anticipating your customers’ needs?

Our top priority for 2020 in the customer experience space is to provide the best entertainment to our players within a safe and responsible environment. This relationship demonstrates our commitment to understand and care for our players and enables us to provide the most enjoyable customer experience.

Zendesk provides a unified view of the player, multiple avenues to reach out to our community and contributes intelligence which we use to refine our predictive models which identify users who may potentially be at risk.

As regulations evolve, it is vital that we continue to demonstrate our commitment to compliance. Zendesk provides us with tools for rigid GDPR compliance, auditing and reporting for KYC and AML.

How do you measure the impact of the customer experience with your customers, are you predominantly focused on retention and spend or is there more to it?

We want to build long-term sustainable relationships with players. We measure the impact of their experience through their engagement with our brands throughout their lifetime rather than spend.

We are always looking to invest in our players and their experience, and this gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace. We are in the entertainment business which is at the heart of the reason why players visit our sites. Our focus is providing enjoyment whilst empowering them with the tools to control their play. By providing a frictionless customer experience, we enhance the value of the brand which helps in our goals of creating a sustainable responsible business and organically drives brand awareness and retention.

Bingo players and operators are unique compared to other sectors of the gaming community. Where do you see the key differences in providing customer service to this sector than say land-based casinos or slots customers?

For our online Bingo-led brands, we have a vibrant social community who enjoy engaging with other members and our Chat Hosts. Our community is often the first to provide us with constructive feedback on our games and engage with us if there are any issues on the site that may need attention. This community feel is not unique to our Bingo players and can be equally applied to other segments of our poker and casino communities. At Gamesys, we have found that brand, player demographics, and a player’s persona influence the type of customer experience one would most prefer to receive — whether that be via phone, email, chat, or even self-service.

As an award-winning, leading global operator, what does Gamesys’ vision look like in the next decade and what part do your service centres play in this?

We continue to invest in the Gamesys Group multi-brand strategy and we recently launched a new site with Scientific Games which is dedicated to one of the UK’s most popular slots, Rainbow Riches.

We will also continue to develop our existing ventures while expanding into new markets. As we know from entering new markets such as Germany, Sweden, and Japan, each market comes with unique challenges, opportunities and regulatory compliance requirements. Our advisors and the player experience we provide will continue to adapt and remain flexible so that we can respond continually to meet our player’s expectations.