Ladbrokes working to bridge multi-channel product gap
Operator plans upgrades to retail-focused loyalty scheme The Grid in plot to catch up with rivals
Ladbrokes is preparing to ramp-up its multi-channel strategy to increase the number of customers that use both its retail and digital products and close the gap on rivals who have stolen a march on the struggling operator.
Key to this strategy will be a ‘Ladbrokes One’ approach, which will include the overhaul of its retail-focused loyalty scheme, The Grid, to create a greater overlap between retail and digital and boost the 11% of customers that currently use both channels – almost half of the 20% figure recorded by William Hill in 2014.
While The Grid, which is run through the OpenBet platform, enables customers to deposit and withdraw cash both in-shop and online it falls some way short of the multi-channel single-wallet Connect card offered by UK rival and potential merger partner Coral.
“We want to seize the multi-channel opportunity and this [improving The Grid] is part of that piece of work,” David Williams, Ladbrokes’ director of media, told eGaming Review.
“There are new digital products about to be launched which will allow customers on The Grid to enjoy a more integrated online and shop betting experience using The Grid as their account.
“We’re excited about possibilities down the line but already we are underway with the Ladbrokes strategy to crack multi-channel,” he added.
Any upgrades made to The Grid would likely involve Ladbrokes’ core suppliers Playtech and OpenBet, who worked together to produce Coral’s successful Connect card which is lined-up to replace The Grid technology should the proposed merger transpire.
Last week, Ladbrokes’ recently-installed chief executive Jim Mullen gave a damning verdict of the operator’s digital business and said the Ladbrokes One strategy would be central to the operator’s growth plans.
“It’s about creating one Ladbrokes – being the bookmaker of choice for customers however and whenever they want to bet,” Mullen said.
“We need to grow the number of our regular retail customers who also use us online from its current low position of 11% – well below where some of our competitors are and where we want to be,” he added.
Mullen also said the operator’s progress had stalled due to a number of factors including “strategic errors, leadership or resting on our laurels” while the firm had previously made “bad decisions with our digital strategy and failed to deliver innovative product and technology”.