The call center has different tools at their disposal, for example, all Microgaming licensees have a system called PCM available to them.

Player Communications Manager (PCM)

The PCM system provides the call center with a number of different services, such as the ability to monitor players live, allowing them to proactively assist players through a chat function. This is especially helpful during registration and banking process, where chats for help can be initiated by both operator and player. On average, the call center handles 11,500 chats per month.

As Robert Menezes Floor Manager in the Fortune Affiliates Call Center says, “Our belief is that if players enjoy themselves, play with us, and win with us – then they are going to stay with us. But if they come through and are having purchasing problems, then straight away they are going to want to go to another casino. That’s why we have a system that notifies us if a person is having trouble in the banking area, having  purchasing problems, can’t register a credit card, so that we can push a chat to them, asking if they are having problems, how we can help, and offering assistance. There are banking specialists whom are a lot savvier with regards to banking rejection codes, nine out of ten times the person registered the incorrect expiry date by a month, or the wrong year, and that’s why the purchase isn’t going through. We try to make the process as easy as possible, you don’t want players to come through and have a clumsy experience. It has got to be easy and flow, and that’s what support is there to do, to make sure that everything is seamless so that the players can enjoy themselves, and no be stuck with problems.”

Other Call Center Tools

“We have a reporting service where we drop the callers email address into and get a customer profile, which tells us all the offers that are available to them, what offer they came in on, as well as what we additionally can offer them. Has the player been winning or is he actually losing his shirt with us – at the end of the day a losing player is a player that we are not going to have for a very long time. That’s why we want our players to win, we want them to cash in, we want everything to go well, because if it does, then they are going to come back to play with us.”

In other words, this system allows for an in-depth analyses on an individual bases, to ensure not only good player experience, but also feasibility for both the casino and the affiliate. The call center however, should not look at affiliates or players that come through on calls as numbers, that would make the casino come off as generic focusing only on the bottom line numbers, as Robert Menezes Floor Manager in the Fortune Affiliates Call Center puts it, “At the end of the day the call center sells entertainment, it’s not selling the purchase.”

The call center does have an up-selling element to it, which works to the benefit of affiliates. “A lot of the time when we are offering a bonuses, at least 70 -80% of the time, it is dependent on the player depositing more than they were originally planning to, so there is an income increase aspect there for the affiliates. Generating that additional income and that revenue benefits the affiliate as well as us.”

The call center is also the first to be informed if there are updates or downtime, so that they can fill queries from players, and keep them happy. As Online Casinos are software based companies there is inevitably going to be some down time now and again to ensure the software is the best that it can be. The Call Center makes sure to comfort frustrated callers with the fact that, “Downtime always comes with some improvement to them, they are going to have better games, sounds, better graphics, so we sell the downtime.”