How to prepare your digital experience for the FIFA World Cup.

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 kicks off on November 20th. The annual competition has grown into one of the largest sporting events in the world, simultaneously making it a global gaming phenomenon for players both online and off. In 2018, FIFA estimated that bookmakers took €136 billion in bets, for example. But the World Cup has evolved each year since its start in 1930. The question is—have your players’ journeys evolved as well? 

Below, we’ve gathered Quantum Metric’s insights into delivering the best possible experience to players during the World Cup, focusing on: New players, returning players, and how to pair proactivity with real-time adjustments. 

1. Engage new players.

Facilitate easy registration.

“Getting 1,000 new visitors to your site through top-class marketing doesn’t matter if half of them drop off registration without completing it,” said one Director of Customer Experience and Engagement from a top betting organization.

Quantum Metric partnered with a top gaming brand to analyze new player drop offs during player registration and noticed that an API timeout was preventing a whopping 78% of potential customers who encountered the issue from finishing registration. 

Optimize to boost customer feedback.

Keeping in mind that new players are having their first-time experience on your site, enabling their feedback can provide you with invaluable insights. However, one has to reduce friction during the survey process in order to ensure completion. 

One Quantum Metric client was seeing a low completion rate on customer feedback surveys without any clear reason. After reviewing the process, our team realized that variations in banner copy were dramatically affecting completion rates, whereas banners with a clear call-to-action (CTA) had 10% higher conversions than those without. By then implementing CTAs across other geographic locations and in various languages, the client saw the same 10% increase in completions across multiple regions. 

Next, by observing session replays, the client saw that players were mistakenly using this link to contact customer service. By optimizing the feedback form and clarifying its purpose, there was an aggregate 29% uplift in survey completions. 

Ensure player safety.

When it comes to new players, gaming operators need to prioritize player safety, which includes detecting player fraud as quickly as possible. These online spaces can be, if left unprotected, rife with payment fraud, account takeover, card testing, and the like. Ensuring that new players feel safe and confident on your site will help not only with registrations, but also with increasing their inclination to return. 

While a great deal of this fraud takes place under the guise of legitimate player activity, gaming operators can use anomaly detection of suspicious users in order to both catch and prevent player fraud. 

2. Satisfy returning players.

“It isn’t just new registrations we need to take care of…but [also] existing customers signing back in,” says one of our clients’ Director of Customer Experience and Engagement. “If you only log-in once every three months, forgetting your log-in details is common. So we need to make sure players don’t get frustrated, give up, and go elsewhere. 

Prioritize improvements based on impact.

Before working with Quantum Metric, one of our clients struggled to prioritize error tickets. Once they brought on the platform, they were able to pinpoint the precise cause and impact of each individual issue. Together, we realized that one particular error was blocking 12% of sportsbook users from accessing their betslips, thus reducing bets by 4%. This needed immediate attention. 

Quantum Metric instantly understood the far reaching impact this could have and resolved the problem within four hours. Had the issue taken a week to fix, the client could have lost an estimated one million US dollars. 

3. Be proactive and keep your head in the game.

No matter how much one prepares, gaming requires immediate attention and occasional actions in order to provide players with the best possible experience. With the World Cup in particular, a surge in activity presents a massive opportunity for the iGaming industry, but also the possibility of technological errors and potential confusion from first-time players who aren’t acquainted with your platform. 

Intercept players having difficulty.

Keeping your finger on the pulse to detect real-time friction lets players know you’re there to support them. 

Quantum Metric worked with a US-based gaming site in order to detect when players were struggling via various behavioral indicators. When such struggles occurred, the player would then be greeted by a chat window to offer aid, thus reducing abandonment.

Analyze your need to livestream. 

For operators using livestreams of the World Cup, capturing real time insights into player behavior as they watch and bet on a game can inform whether or not an investment in the livestream license is yielding a worthwhile return, and how. 

In order to determine the ROI of live streaming, operators must calculate the turnover per game and offset that against the cost of the license to livestream the game.

Don’t drop the ball 

To play the World Cup correctly, iGaming operators should focus on engaging new customers (of which there will be heaps), keeping returning players happy, and striking the right balance between proactivity and real-time adjustments. The common theme across the board? Listening to and meeting player needs by gathering metrics and turning them into actionable insights before it’s game over. 

Learn more about creating a winning player experience with Quantum Metric.