How the UK’s Mobile Betting Apps Perform for Customer Service
After a 3-month break during lockdown, the worlds greatest game made a welcome return to the nation’s TV screens this summer to conclude what has been an unusual and historical end to the football league season.
For online betting apps, this has seen a healthy return to business for the sport that has become increasingly dominated by big money sponsorship deals, blanket advertising campaigns and a wide range of high profile, socio-economic issues linked with the proliferation of sports betting over the last few years.
Online sports betting in the U.K. is big business. An industry that employees just under 100,000 people and is growing at an increasingly rapid pace. Last year online betting accounted for ~20% share of a market worth over £10 billion pounds, with football now the most popular remote betting sport, outcompeting horse racing in turnover by category in Great Britain*
Sports gambling has had a long history in the U.K, with some of the earliest horse races dating back to the 16th century. Yet it wasn’t until the introduction of the Government’s betting act in 1960 that gambling became more commercial. With the flood gates open for off-course betting, hundreds of betting shops started to appear up and down the nations high streets.
Over the next few decades, sports betting became hugely popular over the with over 15,000 betting shops opening and the rise of some of the biggest brand names we know of today; William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral all becoming household names across the country.
By the 1990’s, the vast majority of punters using betting shops were working class men and the reputation of these shops as being seedy dark dens full of smoke and foul language didn’t help much to change this. With bookies seeking to clean up the image of the industry and reach new markets, what followed was a move to create larger customer bases by introducing new features, while encouraging more diverse customer segments and bets. With the dawn of the internet, more televised sport in the form of the new Premier League, and more personal disposable income, betting companies started to see huge growth and online betting sites started to emerge. While still in their infancy, the market slowly started to diverge with the early disruption of traditional high street bookies.
Fast forward to today, with the dominance and uptake in digital, online sports betting continues to see huge growth, huge conglomerate groups of companies are gobbling up the market which includes a number of digital betting companies who are disrupting the larger traditional companies. This is both at the expense of the high street and through a close collaboration with the nations favourite sport, football, where many believe the gamblification of the sport is raising some serious concerns, helping to normalise, even encourage, a pursuit, which, for the most vulnerable, can lead to addiction, financial devastation and suicide in extreme cases.
With just over 7,000 shops currently in the U.K, and the threat of more closures due to the impact of COVID-19, there continues to be further investment in more accessible and convenient digital transactional experiences, against a backdrop of increasing pressure from the Government and the Gambling Commission to further regulate the industry, and promote more ethical, responsible gambling and mental health awareness across mainstream sports betting.
In this special edition of the HelpHandles Insight Series we take a look at how the U.K’s online betting apps use social media messaging to deliver in the moment conversational experiences to customers and discuss how the industry can improve, especially during these challenging and changing times…
*Accounts are programmatically scored out of 100 on our performance index across four metrics. Inbound mention volumes (25%), Response Rate (25%), Responses under 30 mins (25%) and Sentiment (25%). All metrics are available and updated every hour on HelpHandles.comHelpHandles™ U.K’s Mobile Betting Service Index
Top 5 Betting Apps for Customer Service
1. AskPaddyPower
With a dedicated help handle operating real time support for Paddy Power customers from 08:00–00:00, 7 days a week, the Ask Paddy Power social media team, came out as the no.1 sports betting app for customer service throughout the opening of the football league season.
With just over 4,000 mentions received and the highest response rate in total out of the sports betting apps, since the restart of the football league season, the Ask Paddy Power social team, receiving just over 4,000 inbound messages, the Ask Paddy Power support team were the most responsive to customers responding to 62% of inbound messages from the re-start of the football season, with 85% of those responses made in under 30mins.
Founded in 1988 in Dublin, Ireland, Paddy Power merged with Betfair to create Paddy Power Betfair now Flutter Entertainment the largest multi-billion pound betting company on 2 February 2016.
Never one to shy away from controversy, Paddy Power over the years has delivered some of the most outspoken, memorable PR stunts and ad campaigns in the business, while also facing criticism for offering odds on some of the most controversial markets. Yet while Paddy Power continue to communicate with their customers on social media in a fun, and humorous way, we are starting to see more balance with the company promoting and educating customers across its social media channels on how to gamble responsibly, while also investing in the communities it operates to raise awareness of issues surrounding and affecting the sport.
2. Bet365
Established in 2000 from a small temporary building in Stoke by multi-billionaire founder, Denise Coates, Bet365 is the digital-first betting company with its meteoric rise coming from the digital industry. Employing over 4,000 people Bet365 is often cited as a success story in British online businesses, ruling out offline businesses, Bet365 are the largest digital betting app company with innovation at the forefront of its business model.
Receiving a whopping 23,573 mentions, largest share of inbound mentions of the betting apps, the Bet365 team were one of the fastest betting app companies to respond to customers averaging a 31min response time during the restart of the football league season and achieving a worthy 2nd place on the HelpHandles Betting App Index.
3. Betfairhelp
Founded in June 2000, BetFair originally launched as a peer-peer betting exchange rather than a traditional bookie, and became the biggest of its type in no time at all. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange as Betfair Group plc, until it merged with Paddy Power to form Paddy Power Betfair (now Flutter Entertainment) on 2 February 2016.
With the fastest response time of 30mins, and responding to 87% of mentions within 30mins, the Betfair social support team are a respectable 3rd in the HelpHandles Betting Index.
4. Betfred
The Betfred journey to becoming one of the biggest independent betting companies in the UK is more heart-warming than most others. Established from a single shop in Salford by Fred an Peter Done in 1967, the group now have a multi-billion turnover and up to £1 billion in revenues annually. Based in Warrington the company has never been sold or merged and remains in the same hands as it started in.
Fred Done is known in particular for paying our early on Manchester United to win the league twice only for them lose on both occasions (1998 and 2012). He also lost £1,000,000 in a private bet with Victor Chandler (owner of BetVictor) betting again on Man United, this time to finish higher than Chelsea in 2005 — which they didn’t. Despite these misjudgements Fred is also known for inventing the Lucky 15 and other full cover bets.
With 90% of responses made in under 30mins, the Betfred social support team recieved the highest amount of responses under 30mins amongst the betting apps and achieved a top 4 position in the HelpHandles Service Index.
5. William Hill Help
One of the oldest betting companies on the index, the company was founded in 1934 by Mr William Hill, who following some early failures and illegal enterprises found he could make money using a loophole that allowed off-course betting using credit or post. Hill’s entered late into the betting shop industry, opening their first 5 years after the change in law in 1966, due to the founders belief they were a cancer to society. He relented when he saw how quickly his competitors were getting ahead.
For a long time William Hill were the largest betting company in the UK with over 2300 shops and just under £2 billion in annual revenues. The operator, which now generates up to £200 million in annual profits and is listed on the FTSE 250, comes from humble beginnings.
The William Hill group have had some corporate failures over the years but their aggressive strategy, especially online, has allowed them to dominate the market landscape. Probably the most well known bookmaker in the world, largely down to the fact Hill’s have spread outside the UK more than any other bookie, and also due to their vast amount they spend on advertising and sponsorship.
The William Hill social support team achieved a +23 positive sentiment among customers since the restart of the football league, the highest sentiment score amongst the betting apps on the index.
Conclusion
As the betting industry has become more accessible and convenient over the last few years, so has its problems. Just as the global tech giants continue to dominate and start to face up to their own legacy over the last few short decades, the same goes for the betting industry, as the future of bookmaking in the U.K is in the balance as it risks becoming a monopoly of a very few massive group of companies.
With more and more pressure being placed on betting firms to reduce their advertising coverage on sport last year saw a very public move to ban gambling advertising during live TV broadcasts of football matches, and more recently, members of the Gambling Commission have jointly agreed to stop TV and radio advertising of betting during the COVID-19 lockdown. Both moves which on the face of it seem to be a great step forward for the industry, but as with most online betting companies, there has been an increasing focus on social media to advertise to larger, and more targeted demographic of customer online and where much of their target customer base interact. With social media becoming increasingly more popular it does raise the question if wider regulation across platforms is needed.
With mental health rates at their highest ever, there has been a conscious move to educate the public on a host of high profile sporting figures opening up about their own addictions and mental health problems around gambling, we are starting to see more action from betting companies to educate their customer base, and promote responsible gambling in the communities in-which they operate, but more can still be done.
As with all free markets the challenge in the future will be maintaining competition. Only time will tell but there is a distinct possibility a number of betting companies will dominate the market, just as is happening in the tech industry, and previously as with the banking and energy markets, could begin to collude. This will only be a bad thing for punters and new companies looking to enter the market.
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