Q&A: Juergen Reutter, director of mobile at William Hill Online
eGaming Review chats to Juergen Reutter, director of mobile at William Hill Online, about realising the potential of the growing mobile betting sector.
eGaming Review: William Hill Online’s big push is focusing on the customer. How does this translate to the mobile environment and what you are working on at the moment?
Juergen Reutter: We carried out a comprehensive user experience review with a focus on mobile experience and customer expectations “ this has been the basis of our mobile sportsbook redesign. Future focus will be on delivering features our customers have on their desktop, for example, streaming and payment options as well as taking advantage of mobile specific functionality such as push messaging. Our ultimate goal is to serve our customers a seamless user experience across all customer touch points, no matter if you are entering one of our shops, visiting our website or using any of our mobile propositions.
eGR: Great user experience is at the heart of all successful ecommerce sites but has arguably been an afterthought when it comes to mobile gaming and betting. What are the key areas you have to get right when it comes to UE and why?
JR: Betting customers demand speed, simplicity, usability, stability, and a strong product offering to fulfil their mobile
betting requirements. We believe there is a big challenge in keeping up with the velocity in mobile and we see more devices coming out in an ever shorter period of time, more ecosystems to be managed, and more screen-sizes to be adapted.
eGR: How will the new versions of your smartphone and tablet apps differ in terms of user experience and what has it taken to get to this point?
JR: Our new version is about usability and our desire to fully embrace customer experience. We will bring app navigation
and the user interface to a new level, utilising the native components you would expect when using a native app. Android users, due to the current gambling restrictions on Google Play, can access our propositions through our mobile web apps. Here, we are making use of HTML5, a technology that is increasingly enabling us to offer native app features in a cloudbased web app experience.
eGR: What percentage of new players are activating through mobile compared to a year ago and being retained as a result?
JR: On sportsbook our mobile share is already above 30% and our new tablet proposition will further accelerate this growth. We are still building up to the launch of our iPad app but we are expecting this to be another game changer. Recent studies suggest that 17% of smartphone users already own a tablet, which will have a huge bearing for in-play betting.
eGR: There’s a lot of innovative work going on behind the scenes at William Hill in Gibraltar. What can we expect to see in the next six months to a year?
JR: We believe HTML5 will be a major game changer and we are fully embracing this technology and enriching our services with new features and propositions for gaming and sportsbook. Some trading developments will lend themselves well to the mobile model. The launch of ‘fiveminute markets’ for in-play football will be a first for the industry. Customers will have the chance to bet across 18 five-minute segments throughout the match, reshaping the way they currently perceive in-play betting. In today’s instant gratification society with Facebook and Twitter updates a way of life, we could see this appealing to a whole new generation of betting customer.