How to overcome common CRM pitfalls
Nick Garner, founder and CEO of oshi Casino, reveals which four CRM mistakes are most commonly made and how to avoid them
Having worked for many large egaming brands, both as an employee and through the marketing agency I founded, 90 Digital, CRM is a subject very close to my heart. This is even more so these days because of Oshi, the online casino I launched in 2015.
Every big egaming business has them: somebody dedicated to spinning out emails and making sure they convert. But when you actually break down what CRM really means, it’s a much broader subject than just another email.
Customer relationship management is something that is affected by everything – from social media through to a Google search checking you out, through to those emails we all receive.
When I founded Oshi casino, I was resolute about avoiding the mistakes others fall into:
- lack of sincerity/authenticity
- no real voice or opinions
- repetitiveness
- no empathy
Sincerity
I’ve always wrestled with this one. Online casinos, and egaming brands in general, are not really seen as the customer’s friend. This is because as operators we make decisions people just don’t like sometimes.
It’s the angry people who make noise and the happy ones who are silent. It’s very easy to believe the world is full of haters who feel cheated when they have had a big win and it’s not been paid out.
The reality is that, for every screaming hater, there are probably 200 fairly happy customers quietly going about their business. I think it’s better to assume people are generally good and honest. So, talking honestly with those good people instead of being afraid of haters is a good place to start. In marketing, being sincere is called ‘authenticity’. In a world of cookie-cutter brands, a little genuine authenticity goes a long way to differentiate you.
Having opinions and a voice
Following on from being sincere and therefore being truthful to oneself as a brand, it’s much easier to have a genuine voice that differentiates and resonates with a defined group of people. No one can be all things to everyone, but as a brand you can have a voice that resonates with exactly the right group of people for you.
For example, have you ever heard the term ‘marketing-eze’? It’s that starchy language which says nothing and tries to sound very grand: “We are the premier brand for [something], our customer services team are always happy to help you”.
The modern equivalent in egaming is: “[Insert casino] is an exciting new casino offering hundreds of thrilling games. Our experienced management team (no reference to who they actually are) have been in the casino industry for years” et cetera et cetera. Is that persuasive? I didn’t think so. Be real, have your own voice.
Repetitiveness
What’s with egaming brands spamming? How many times can a brand say: “We’ve got another exciting huge bonus offer for you!”? If you have signed up to any egaming brands, your inbox probably has quite a few of these sorts of emails.
No empathy
Yes, the stuff you send out sucks up people’s time. Don’t waste it. If you are at all empathetic, you’ll think twice about shovelling out another 10,000 pointless emails in the hope of a few conversions.
It’s all very good me talking about the things I don’t like, but what about the stuff we do at Oshi?
Reputation on Google
We have always made a big deal of working with affiliates who we know will rank well on our most important consideration phrases on Google. These are phrases like ‘Oshi casino’ and ‘Oshi casino reviews’. If somebody is checking us out, they are most likely to use a search engine as a first step, so we’ve made a lot of effort to look really good on Google search.
Tone and voice
When we architected Oshi at the very beginning, we decided to create a mascot, the Oshi guy who is a friendly ‘blobby’ looking guy who smiles a lot. We also looked very closely at organisations which are brilliant at being very business-like but friendly at the same time. Funnily enough Google does this very well.
For example, terms and conditions are so important to any brand but legal English is hard for most people to make sense of. We decided to create plain English explanations for each of our terms and conditions. It means more writing, but if you actually read these terms and conditions they will make sense. In turn, customers aren’t going to get any nasty surprises and hopefully won’t go screaming if they have broken those terms and conditions.
We’ve even used a service called G-translate which does a really good job of translating the simplified English we use into multiple languages. Obviously it means non-English speakers can understand more. We also have a knowledge base, where we just answer all those questions people ask. Our view: if people are interested they’ll generally want to know more at some time or another, so make it easy for them.
Transparency
We do a lot of community engagement and our community manager has been told he can be as straightforward and honest as he likes. We have nothing to hide, so therefore ‘say it like you see it’. I think some people wonder why we’re so straight about things, but it has a massively positive residual effect and people trust us. It’s one of the reasons we have a lot of more experienced players.
And on the subject of emails, since that’s what people think CRM is mostly about, here is an example of a random recent email from us:
Hi {name of customer}
Oshi is soon introducing Slots Tournaments! We would like to hear what you want to see in these tournaments, your opinion matters.
What sort of prizes would YOU like to see?
What are YOUR favourite themes?
All suggestions are welcome, we are making these tournaments for YOU!
In the meantime, feel free to log in and check today’s reload bonus:
Button reads: Surprise Surprise..
Oshi Care Team
Whether you reply to these emails or not, or take a reload bonus, what stands out (for me at least) is that we’re being friendly, not trying to shove another free bonus on your face and we could do with your feedback. I think that’s a good way to conduct CRM.
You can obviously see for Oshi, at least, CRM is a very holistic discipline. In a big organisation it’s difficult to pull all of the different marketing disciplines together, but that’s where brand managers are very important; they can set the tone and the voice for everyone else to follow.
Anyhow having read this article, I hope you can redefine CRM in your own new way.
Nick Garner was a marketing manager in Betfair and subsequently Unibet. He later set his own successful marketing agency, 90 Digital, before launching Oshi casino