Customer support is a challenging area of work. It requires strong communication abilities, empathy, assertiveness, a thorough understanding of an organization, and resilience. It is an important component of any organization that provides services or products to other people, so it’s essentially part of every industry, including iGaming.
Customer support in iGaming presents several unique challenges that affect how support workers and entire teams approach their work and serve each customer. These challenges encompass issues related to regional regulations, responsible gambling, fraud prevention, navigating different languages, and the already taxing trials impacting customer support workers across industries. Below, we’ll explore these challenges in closer detail.
Regional Regulations
From social and PayPal casinos to online sportsbooks and everything in between, iGaming regulations vary significantly from country to country and state to state. Customer support must be knowledgeable about the regulations for different areas in which their organization operates to ensure they deliver legally sound information to customers.
Responsible Gambling Practices
With online gambling, concerns around problem gambling have become more prominent as online platforms make it easier than ever for people to participate in the activity. It may sound surprising since it earns them more money, but problem gambling is a genuine concern for iGaming companies and one that they try to mitigate among their players.
Part of the reason iGaming platforms are doing this is because of legal obligations; regulated sites are required to offer responsible gaming tools and to assist at-risk players. Additionally, problem gambling in the long term is bad for business. It not only hurts a company’s client base but also its profitability, as a problem gambler won’t be able to continue spending money on its platforms in the long term.
Addressing problem gambling within an organization and in a customer support team’s interactions with players is essential. Customer support teams must be able to recognize the signs of problem gambling and have the tools, resources, and action plans to help. As it is a mental health concern, it requires a diverse skill set and specific training to recognize and address it effectively.
Artificial intelligence is showing promise as a resource for helping organizations protect vulnerable players. It can analyze their typical behaviors and determine when changes in gaming activity may indicate problem gambling. With this information, customer support can reach out to players and ensure they have the tools and resources to help them address concerns.
Fraud Prevention
Fraud, scams, and other illegal behaviors have long been a concern on digital platforms we use regularly, and they are also a serious concern in the online gambling industry. As the industry has grown in popularity, it has also been increasingly targeted by scammers and other illegal actors. Awareness of the different types of fraud, the potential concerns that can impact clients, and flagging unusual behavior are all crucial elements of customer support. It helps them protect sensitive customer information and detect if the customer (or their account) shows signs of fraudulent behavior, allowing concerns to be addressed before they become serious problems.
In addition, fraudulent activity increases the workload for customer support teams, leading to an increased number of support requests and taxing the customer support team. This risks ruining the customer experience and hurting the company’s overall performance. Fraud detection, ID verification, and anti-money laundering tools are essential in iGaming operations, including at the customer support level, to help prevent and address issues, keep customers happy and their information safe, and ensure the smooth operation of iGaming platforms.
Language Barriers
Since gambling platforms serve a broad range of users, it’s not uncommon for customer support teams to encounter language barriers that make it difficult to communicate with customers. Fluency in multiple languages can help with this, but translation tools, which are continually improving, also facilitate communication across language barriers.
Angry Customers
When customers reach out to customer support, they often aren’t happy and are looking for a solution. Unfortunately, tensions can run high in these situations, leading to customer support dealing with angry individuals. Being an active listener, personalizing the interaction, and maintaining a positive approach can help resolve these heightened emotions. However, customer support members must balance being empathetic listeners with being firm about what can and cannot be done, especially when customers are irate about the outcome of a game or wager.
Financial Issues
Any time people share their financial information online, whether shopping or gaming, issues can arise, making this a common concern for customer support teams to address. Since finances are personal and, for many, stressful, customer concerns in this area must be addressed promptly and tactfully, creating a sense of urgency for customer support teams.
Technical Problems
Games experience glitches, sometimes players get locked out of their accounts, and many other technical problems can arise when using a digital platform. This leads to customers needing assistance from support teams to resolve the issues, adding another area of knowledge for customer support to be versed in to deliver prompt and effective assistance. Fortunately, customer support bots are well-equipped to help deal with common technical issues, allowing teams to free up their time to deal with more complex and pressing customer concerns.
Conclusion
Customer support is essential across industries for maintaining positive customer relationships and ensuring repeat business, and this is no different in the iGaming industry. iGaming customer support teams must take the time to fully form operations and action plans for tackling these issues effectively, whether it’s industry-specific concerns, like keeping up with regional regulations or supporting responsible gambling, or concerns that face customer support workers across industries.
Having strategies and systems in place allows support workers to focus on the customer with as few disruptions as possible, creating a more positive experience for all involved. Remember, while upset customers may be frustrating to deal with, it’s also an opportunity to impress them and increase customer satisfaction, allowing the organization to prosper.
