Industry News
Zendesk’s customer experience research reveals power of one “seamless conversation”
“Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and loyalty is fleeting,” according to the annual flagship report from leading global CRM provider Zendesk, which provides customer experience software to industry brands such as Big Fish Games, GameSys, Mr Green, LeoVegas, White Hat Gaming and more. At a time where brand allegiance is transient across land-based and online brands, the research provides insights into how companies, from start-ups to successful pioneers, can drive service and ensure customer reliability…
Zendesk, Inc., which serves more than 150,000 customers across a multitude of industries in over 30 languages, has been established in the gaming industry for more than twelve years and has recently released its annual Customer Experience Trends Report 2020 research, identifying trends that translate to gaming companies of all sizes.
Elisabeth Zornes, Chief Customer Officer at Zendesk explained: “While customer expectations continue to rise, the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020 shows that companies aren’t living up to these expectations. For example, according to the report, many of the channels people want for fast, efficient resolution aren’t being offered. In fact, only a third of companies offer self-service options like knowledge base help centers, and less than a third offer chat, social messaging, in-app messaging, bots or communities.”
The issue of tech-based service solutions isn’t restricted to just iGaming as the report also highlights the increasing market saturation in land-based and hospitality too. “Businesses are facing competition from companies that are providing purpose-driven solutions in service of the customer, raising the stakes for everyone,” she said. “Well-established and iconic brands like the Four Seasons remain one step ahead because they invest in new technologies in continued pursuit of an easy and excellent customer experience.
“This presents a challenging landscape, and for companies that are struggling to navigate, the report identifies what businesses of all sizes, in every industry, can do to provide excellent customer service and create loyal customers, starting with the initial sales process.”
Based on global survey results and the Zendesk Benchmark, an index of product usage data from more than 45,000 global companies using Zendesk’s leading customer experience platform, the 2020 report highlights how the most successful companies achieve their position by executing four essential customer service attributes. These comprise: maintain one seamless conversation; harness customer data; embrace artificial intelligence; and, give customer experience a seat in the C-suite.
“Customers today expect uninterrupted conversations that don’t start or stop in the middle of their interaction or get lost in a different communication channel,” Zornes said. According to the report, half of customers will switch to a competitor after just one bad experience, and 80 percent will leave after multiple bad experiences. The research also reveals that service is a primary driver of customer loyalty, second only to price in determining whether customers feel loyal to a brand.
When it comes to data, the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020 findings show that customers prefer companies to keep track of their data if it leads to better experiences, with more than 75 percent of customers wanting the personalization that comes with better insights. Being able to manage and interpret data is crucial for understanding customers and proactively identifying opportunities to better serve them.
Speaking about AI innovation in customer service, Zornes added: “As AI innovation becomes more accessible, it represents the future of customer service, and there is still a huge opportunity for companies to start taking advantage of the technology. Our findings show that only 37 percent of customer experience teams are using AI. However, high-performing customer experience teams are twice as likely to embrace AI, incorporating the technology across more channels and interactions with customers.
“And finally, in terms of C-level customer service approach, the most successful companies are tapping into the value of prioritizing the customer experience, and forward-thinking companies are bringing in leaders who can understand and champion the customer.”
While these four attributes aren’t a shortcut that immediately equals success, they are definitely a step in the right direction as customer service continues to evolve in the next decade. Focusing on the approach companies can take going into 2020 and beyond, Zornes concluded: “We are in an entirely new era of customer expectations to such an extent that service can make or break a company. To build a loyal customer base and truly differentiate themselves, companies of all sizes across industries and geographies must provide an easy and frictionless customer experience, earning and re-earning a customer’s business with every interaction.”
To learn more about the most important trends in the customer experience industry, the full the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020 can be downloaded via https://www.zendesk.com/customer-experience-trends/.
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PayDo, a leading global payment ecosystem founded by Serhii Zakharov – who at just 25 became one of the youngest CEOs approved by the FCA to run an Electronic Money Institution in the UK, announced a series of strategic infrastructure launches designed to dismantle the costly complexity of modern payment stacks.
The releases—Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant access, USD SWIFT Accounts, Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts and Direct VISA and MasterCard Acquiring—are not standalone products, but integrated components of PayDo’s unified platform.
For the first time, online businesses can access this comprehensive suite under a single contract, one technical integration and with a dedicated account manager, eliminating the operational burden of managing multiple providers.
The launches directly address the primary pain points of payment fragmentation: high costs from intermediaries, slow settlement times, compliance overhead and loss of control. By securing direct memberships and building proprietary technology, PayDo now offers businesses enterprise-grade infrastructure with the agility of a FinTech.
The new services include:
• Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant: As a direct SEPA member, PayDo provides native European processing with no intermediary routing. This ensures faster, lower-cost euro transactions with immediate settlement capabilities via SEPA Instant.
• USD SWIFT Accounts: Online businesses can now receive dedicated USD account details via the SWIFT network, significantly reducing delays and fees associated with cross-border USD transactions, a critical need for a variety of cross-border operating online businesses.
• Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts: A pioneering innovation, this service revolutionises how businesses receive payments. It enables instant, direct bank-to-business transfers from customers, offering an alternative to card networks with correct funds tracking and allocation, lower costs and real-time settlement. Functionality supports processing of +100,000 daily transactions.
• Launch of Direct Acquiring: PayDo is now a principal member acquirer for both Visa and Mastercard. This direct relationship removes a layer of intermediaries, reducing processing costs, improving authorisation rates and giving merchants greater control and transparency over their card payment flows.
These services are delivered within PayDo’s unified ecosystem, which also includes its signatory innovation – non-redirect E-Wallet checkout. This earlier innovation provided merchants with full friendly-fraud protection without any rolling reserve requirements. The new ecosystem approach allows companies in sectors like e-commerce, IT services, marketplaces, gaming and other Fintechs to streamline their entire financial operations, turning payment management from a resource drain into a competitive advantage.
Serhii Zakharov, CEO and Founder of PayDo, said: “For years, businesses have been forced to stitch together a patchwork of payment providers, each adding cost, complexity, and delay. We believe the future is not in more fragmentation, but in intelligent unification. These launches are not just new features; they are the foundational pillars of a coherent ecosystem. We are giving our clients direct control over the core rails of finance—from SEPA and SWIFT to card acquiring and Open Banking—all through one partnership. This is how we eliminate the hidden tax of fragmentation and empower businesses to scale globally with clarity and efficiency.”
PayDo’s ecosystem now processes over €5B annually for over 1000 businesses, leveraging its full regulatory compliance in the UK, Canada and the EU. The company’s direct infrastructure model is proving that the next wave of Fintech growth will be driven by consolidation and seamless integration, not further division.
The post PayDo Launches Unified Payment Infrastructure Suite for Digital Businesses appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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While prediction markets have recently attracted increased public attention across politics, finance and culture, Meridianbet, part of the Golden Matrix Group has supported user-generated real-world prediction markets for more than a decade through its proprietary product branded as Free Bet.
For the second half of 2025, customer participation on the Free Bet platform has recorded an 11.5% increase in ticket volumes, reflecting renewed engagement across prediction markets tied to major elections, entertainment outcomes, weather forecasting and novelty-event propositions. Free Bet continues to represent a relatively small and non-material portion of Meridianbet’s overall wagering activity.
Free Bet allows customers to propose wagers on measurable real-world outcomes across sports, politics, entertainment awards, weather forecasting, financial milestones and social statistics. Once a proposed market passes regulatory, settlement and risk review, Meridianbet acts as the professional market maker, prices the odds and takes the lay side of each wager within the Company’s licensed sportsbook framework. This single-market-maker structure enables the delivery of prediction-market-style wagering to mass-market users while ensuring regulatory compliance, operational stability and standardised settlement.
In practical terms, customers initiate Free Bet markets by submitting their own proposed prediction events through Meridianbet’s platforms or retail network. Each submission is reviewed to ensure that the proposed event is lawful, ethically appropriate, clearly measurable and capable of unambiguous settlement under applicable regulatory standards. Only after passing these checks is the event accepted and priced by Meridianbet’s trading operators, who establish odds and offer the market to the customer for wagering.
Top Prediction Markets on Meridianbet
Over the past five years, Meridianbet customers have created and wagered on thousands of custom prediction markets reflecting major real-world outcomes across political cycles, cultural awards, financial milestones, weather forecasting and social trends.
Based on internal ticket volume and platform engagement data, the following five prediction markets have ranked among the most actively played on Meridianbet during this period:
U.S. Presidential Election
Binary outcome markets and related propositions tied to the U.S. presidential election results.
Global Entertainment Awards
Custom markets associated with major award outcomes including Oscars Best Picture and BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Weather Prediction Markets
Seasonal and location-specific forecasts, including snowfall occurrence and temperature benchmark outcomes during late winter and early spring periods.
Social Outcome Markets
Demographic and statistical propositions connected to public milestones, including birth-gender distributions during peak holiday periods and other large-scale social outcome measurements.
Regulatory & Availability Notice
The Free Bet product and related prediction market offerings are provided strictly in accordance with applicable national and local regulatory requirements and are available only in jurisdictions where such wagering formats are duly authorised by law.
Availability, market scope and wagering features may vary by location and regulatory regime. Certain jurisdictions may restrict or prohibit participation in custom prediction-based wagering products.
The post Meridianbet Reports Renewed Engagement in Custom Prediction Markets in H2 2025 appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
AI-Driven Optimisation
HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service
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HilltopAds announced the rollout of a specialised feature set built exclusively for iGaming advertisers, reinforcing the company’s focus on performance-driven media buying across global markets.
At the center of the release are newly launched, ready-to-use white- and blacklists, curated from premium traffic sources that have consistently shown strong results for iGaming campaigns. These lists are derived from performance data across thousands of active advertisers and are designed to reduce testing time while increasing the predictability of campaign outcomes.
HilltopAds is also introducing a full-managed service, giving advertisers access to dedicated iGaming specialists who will set up, launch and continuously optimise campaigns based on individual KPI requirements. This service aims to support teams looking for deeper expertise, streamlined workflows or hands-off performance management.
To mark the launch, HilltopAds is providing a $2000 bonus for all direct iGaming advertisers making their first deposit of $5000 or more using the promo code IGAVCIP.
These updates complement HilltopAds’ existing capabilities for the iGaming sector, including:
• Massive Global Reach: Over 273B monthly impressions available across 250+ countries.
• Premium Direct Traffic: Access to 39,000+ vetted websites suitable for iGaming user acquisition.
• AI-Driven Optimisation: Automated tools focused on maximising bets, deposits and high-value player actions.
• Flexible Bidding Models: CPM, CPC and CPA Goal options tailored for scale and performance control.
• Specialised Network Infrastructure: Built to support consistent delivery, stable volumes and transparent reporting for regulated verticals.
With these additions, HilltopAds aims to provide iGaming advertisers with a more data-grounded, efficient and scalable environment for user acquisition.
The post HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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