Paddy Power Betfair “paves the way” with product innovation

The technology industry is perpetually at war, with companies swiftly rolling out the latest, most revolutionary product, only to move just as swiftly on to the next one.

Egaming operators pump huge investments into product development and innovation, constantly seeking to integrate their services into the most current and consumer friendly products.

Among those is Paddy Power, known for its quirky, light-hearted approach to customer engagement on social media.

Earlier this month Paddy Power revealed their partnership with Amazon, launching the first bookmaker powered ‘skill’ using the ecommerce giant’s voice recognition service Alexa.

New product innovation manager Stephen McMeel speaks to EGR Technology on the operator’s drive to “enhance customer experience” and the draw of digital assistants.

EGR Technology: Paddy Power has been very actively rolling out quirky new products and services on Facebook Messenger and Amazon devices, what’s been the thinking behind these specific moves?

Stephen McMeel (SM): It’s quite simple, it’s my job to find answers. The rate at which new technology is becoming accessible is staggering and with new tech comes new questions. The first question that crosses my mind is “Can this technology enhance or augment our customers’ experience?” The second is “How will it?”

In the past, the industry has all too often had a knee-jerk reaction to new tech and just assumed that we need to shoe-horn the existing mobile product into this new tech (Google Glass, Apple Watch to name a few) – and we have been guilty of this. Now, we make smart investments and strive for big learning. These innovation experiments get us to a point where we can either confidently say no to the technology or invest with confidence.

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) has a habit of paving the way for the industry, we’re always casting an eye on the horizon to spot emerging technology trends. This is the main reason we wanted to work with Amazon on the Alexa project. It’s because we believe digital assistants in the home will have a significant part to play in our customer’s lives in the near future and that Amazon have set something in motion that will shape how humans will interact with this technology for years to come.

EGR Technology: What else is in the pipeline for product innovation? What areas are you looking into?

SM: In the short term – my focus is on digital assistants (voice & text). We have been doing quite a bit in terms of Facebook Messenger. Everyone is talking about chatbots and we’ve all hear about how you can order an Uber or Dominos via Facebook Messenger.

Many companies are assuming that people want to transact with their ecommerce company via a chatbot instead of existing touch points. For me, it won’t do that unless it’s significantly easier to transact via that tech. You have to throw the net wide and far in order to truly understand the potential of the tech – this is what we’re doing at PPB.

In terms of other technologies, we recognise the hype around Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. While these technologies are clearly impressive and improving at a staggering rate – timing is everything and we feel it’s too soon for VR/AR. But, as soon as we feel that’s changing – we’ll invest smart and learn quickly.

EGR Technology: How does PPB stay ahead of its competitors on this front?

SM: By leveraging the scale of PPB we are in a position to experiment and share our learnings across Betfair, Paddy Power, Sportsbet and TVG. For example, our colleagues in Sportsbet created a Cup Day Survival bot for Melbourne Cup last November.

The engagement levels were unlike anything we’ve seen in the bot category. Our recently released Paddy Power Messenger bot is a different proposition to these ‘disposable’ bots giving us a completely different perspective. This means that we’ll very quickly have a deep understanding as to how different bots may enhance or augment our customers’ lives.

EGR Technology: Why is product innovation so important? How much emphasis does PPB put into this side of the business?

SM: Innovation is hugely important to PPB, it’s ingrained in our DNA. If you take a step back and look at the past thirty years, you see it.  From Betfair’s first in market Exchange, Cash Out, Each Way Edge and Acca Edge through to Paddy Power’s Money Back Specials, Guerrilla Marketing and Social Media domination. This shows that it’s not solely about product innovation – innovation is in everything we do. It’s part of the culture. TVG recently introduced Money Back Specials in the US market and this is a first for that territory and is proving to be incredibly successful.

It’s not always about the big ticket items either. Last August, we released the ability for our customers to share their screenshots within the Paddy Power app. The insight from a simple feature like that has been invaluable. Others in the industry have taken note and have followed suit.

EGR Technology: What do you predict is in the future for product innovation? Can you envision any interesting shifts in how customers are betting, or communicating with firms?

SM: It’s impossible to predict. We all have opinions and gut feelings but nobody can be sure. I’m very confident that we’ll seem more change in customer behaviour over the next five years compared to what we’ve seen over the past twenty years. What’s important to me is that PPB has the methodology in place to assess and quickly react to new changes.

EGR Technology: What areas of the tech industry do you follow for inspiration and current movements?

SM: I prefer to keep a focus outside the industry for inspiration. I go through tech news at the start of every day to see what’s topical and take note of new tech trends emerging. “Wait But Why” is a blog that I religiously follow and read when I want to have my mind and imagination stretched. I’m a serious Elon Musk fanboy and this site covers the work of Elon Musk in great detail. They just released a post on how Elon’s latest company, Neuralink, will strive to link the human brain with a machine interface.