Women in gaming: Kindred Group's Britt Boeskov on customer experience
In the second of a five-part series of women in gaming interviews, Kindred Group’s CXO insists that with the regulatory headwinds buffeting the industry, you cannot afford to have a “leaky bucket” when it comes to user retention
Not too many companies in the online gambling sphere have a chief experience officer, or CXO to give it its truncated title, yet Kindred Group’s decision to create this role in 2019 underlines the importance the company puts on CX. The Stockholm-listed operator’s CXO is Britt Boeskov, who has been with the business since 2005 when she joined as a management trainee before rising through the ranks to join the C-suite.
“My role is really to understand the customers’ needs and make sure that they’re prioritised,” explains the 42-year-old Dane. “Very practically, we do so through a journey-centric methodology that we’ve organised around seven customer experiences.” These are: ‘join and leave’, ‘pay and withdraw’, ‘play sports’, ‘play gaming’, ‘get communications and rewards’, ‘be in control’ as well as ‘get help’.
During a chat over Microsoft Teams, Boeskov references a seminal book first published in 2012 entitled Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business as a catalyst for Kindred creating a customer experience team. Yet, an internal review in 2019 provided the opportunity to properly reorganise the operating model and team structure around customer experience efforts. “It was a huge step,” Boeskov reflects.
“We did it on the back of further strategic challenges we saw in the market. With increasing taxes and regulation, and all the changes we’re seeing, you can’t have a leaky bucket in this environment and succeed. You can’t just keep acquiring new customers and losing them; you have to be able to get customer loyalty.”
Indeed, it is said that it can cost five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. But whether it is catering to current customers or onboarding new ones, at the heart of great CX is the user journey. This means smoothing out any friction points across desktop and mobile.
One aspect Boeskov highlights as being “very tricky and increasingly necessary” is that of customer verification. “We managed to change the way that documents were uploaded and, so, we saw sharp reduction in rejected documents and a 20% uplift in CSAT [customer satisfaction score] just on that one journey after fixing it.”
In addition, Kindred witnessed a significant 60% uplift in opt-ins for marketing messaging by simply altering the way in which customers were asked if they wanted to receive direct communications. On customer satisfaction specifically, Boeskov says Kindred has gone into “CSAT overdrive” of late. “Every interaction is measured and made available to all our employees through a data mining tool,” she explains.
In this day and age, consumers are notoriously promiscuous when it comes to their dealings with customer-facing businesses. This especially applies to igaming with all the head-turning offers and bonuses dished out like confetti. And with the online gambling industry often described as being commoditised and operators offering the same betting markets and same games from suppliers, being able to stand out and differentiate on product can help massively with CX.
A good example of late in this area is Watch & Bet developed for Unibet’s sportsbook and unveiled in late April. This feature overlays real-time odds on football and tennis streams, allowing bets to be placed without having to navigate away from the live footage. “That’s an example of how you can make the experience less commoditised,” says the CXO.
Apps such as Spotify, Netflix or Uber are hailed for their overall user experience, while the gambling industry can learn a lot from the uncluttered and clean UI deployed by fintech firms, including neobanks and retail trading products. However, it’s the entertainment and e-commerce segments that lead the way, Boeskov suggests.
“Entertainment and e-commerce were rooted in the idea that customer is king and that the business needs the customer more than the customer needs the business. Historically, perhaps there was this adversarial relationship between bookmakers and customers where either you win, or I win. So, it was never, ‘we got to give you a great service, so it’s going to feel like a win-win’. We must get into that mindset and see our own products from an outside-in view and walk in the customer’s shoes.”
During Kindred’s recent financial results, it was revealed that its active customers hit a new all-time high of 1.8 million in Q1 2021 – a 19% increase year-on-year – while the total number of registered users rose to above 30 million at the end of the quarter. This goes to show that Kindred must be doing something right regarding its players.
As a leading online gambling company, this multi-brand operator believes you can’t be ‘obsessed’ about the customer without becoming journey centric. For Boeskov, though, “perception is reality” when it comes to customer experience.
“If you as a customer have an experience that was unique and pleasant, and it’s a good brand to interact with, then that is the truth,” she insists.
To highlight the critical roles women play in Kindred Group’s operations, the Malta-based company is currently running an Inspirational Women series on its corporate website that hears from female employees. Just reading about their experiences and career paths has been a source of pride for Kindred’s CXO, Britt Boeskov. “I’m reading about my own colleagues and I see that within Kindred women have travelled outside of their own comfort zone to lead in spaces that they were not necessarily trained in or comfortable in. They have been seen as leaders, not just specialists with seniority.”
On how the sector can attract more women who may be turned off by igaming, she adds: “The industry can do more to highlight why it is the absolute best place to grow for a young, ambitious and professional woman. The growth, the innovation and the very juicy, complex problems that face this industry in terms of where we fit in society in the future – those are challenges that lots of women with lots of different backgrounds really enjoy working in.”