Should you focus on growing your retail casino or pour all your efforts into an online casino instead? To answer objectively, consider what it takes to retain players on each platform. Repeat players account for a large portion of casino profits. Make no mistake, each has its challenges, and understanding these drawbacks will help you make fruitful decisions when chasing customers.
How online casinos win at customer retention
Online casinos use several approaches to win at retaining customers. Some of the top ones include:
Multiple payment methods
Efficient transaction processes make it easy for players to work with an online platform. This means that merchants can’t afford to rely on a single payment method. E-wallets and crypto wallets are quite popular, and successful online casinos often have both. An additional payment method that’s growing in popularity is mobile payments.
This third option allows pay by mobile casinos to process player deposits directly via their mobile provider. It works whether users use monthly post-pay billing or prepaid plans with their mobile providers. For players on a post-pay plan, the vendor simply charges their deposit to their monthly phone bill. For those using prepaid mobile plans, the vendor deducts the fee from the player’s credit.
Loyalty programmes
Online casinos use innovative ways to reward players, such as gamification, levels, rewards, leaderboards, customisation of avatars and missions. Tiered loyalty programmes curb boredom and increase player engagement, with users likely to stick around not just for the rewards but also for the fun.
Unfettered accessibility
Unlike retail casinos which operate within fixed timelines, online casinos run all day and night. Players can log in from any location where gaming is legal at their convenience. If you’re considering setting up an online casino, these customer retention approaches may help your business.
Online casino retention challenges
Even with all its strong winning points, the online casino faces some distinctive challenges that make player retention difficult, such as:
Poor UX/UI design
The success of any online casino greatly hinges on a quality user interface. If the UI is not well-designed, players will struggle to navigate the platform and will log out. As a merchant, you are more likely to lose such a player than convince them to come back.
Lack of intuitive prompts
Input prompts shorten the time it takes the player to feed information into the platform. Without these, users take longer to set things up. In the end, they’re frustrated and opt to use other platforms instead.
Poor customer support
Reliable customer support helps ensure player re-engagement. Nothing beats the human touch of a knowledgeable customer support agent when a player is stuck. Automation does not provide the same personalised service as human support staff, so don’t leave your entire customer interaction process in the hands of bots. Remember, time is of the essence to players, so have sufficient customer support on standby to provide help as soon as players need it.
Retail casino retention challenges
What makes it hard to attain and retain customers for a retail casino? Here are the main culprits:
Geographic limitations
Retail casinos are locationally limited, so they can only serve customers who walk through the casino doors. Even if they were to entice players in a faraway location, it may not be possible for the customers to commute to the casino regularly.
If drawn in by the casino’s services, the customers might make a weekly, monthly or annual trip to play — at best. Some may never make their way to the casino at all and remain distant fans. The cost implications and personal effort required to become a loyal customer are significant. The casino would need to put in extra effort to win such players over, and even greater effort to retain them.
Expensive to run
It takes more resources to operate a physical casino than an online one. From personnel requirements to salaries, equipment, lease or mortgage payments, security and other overheads, the cost to keep a retail casino in operation can quickly add up. Throw in the extra investment needed to retain customers and the expenses can double or triple.
Insufficient space
A small retail space can be a turn-off for players. If a customer finds the casino congested or stuffy, they are unlikely to come back or become a regular. To overcome this, casino operators should aim for spacious premises where customers do not feel constricted.
Inadequate equipment
Players won’t feel the pull to return to retail casinos with limited equipment. Physical casinos must ensure they have enough machines and offer a wide variety of gaming options if they are to re-engage customers repeatedly.
Competition
Players have options that include rival casinos and online casinos, so the retail casino must offer incentives to attract new players and convince existing ones to keep patronising their casino. Their offers must not only be better but also unique, so something players wouldn’t find in other casinos.
Personal prejudice
Prejudices may play a role in how a customer perceives a casino. They may not fancy the casino theme colours, decor or layout. They may not like the game options available or they may dislike the support staff helping them around the facility. While the casino management may have put measures in place to make the experience enjoyable for the customer, they have no control over what the client thinks of them, their establishment, or their staff.
Few personalisation options
Retail casinos have limited options when it comes to personalising the in-store experience for each customer. It is impossible to offer unlimited customisation for every player who walks in as well as to have enough staff on standby to attend to each customer for as many minutes or hours as the customer needs.
While both retail and online casinos have ways of re-engaging players, they each face unique challenges that make this quest harder to overcome. When push comes to shove, online casinos apply some ingenious tricks to stay ahead of the game.
