60% Less Steps, Improves Conversion Rate

Background

Digital transformation in the gambling and betting sector is as much a pressing topic as for any well-established industry that has to adapt to the digital world and new requirements of its users. With a consistent decline in the number of bricks-and-mortar betting shops each year and growing statistics of the time we spend on our mobile devices, digitalization is something that cannot be ignored by such a highly-competitive industry. For these reasons, iGaming providers are putting more and more focus and effort into getting their users online and at the same time keep it in line with their offline offerings to create a seamless omnichannel experience for their users. A task that is quite challenging from several perspectives.

One of the main strategic goals for any iGaming provider today is to increase the percentage of online users and for obvious reasons. The time punters spend in on-premises betting shops is limited to its working hours, while online products have 24/7 access, which means that users can bet anywhere and anytime. This is especially beneficial for sports betting, with sports events happening globally around the clock.

Challenge

With the increase in the number of online users, the services iGaming companies provide, especially when it comes to the process of onboarding, leave a lot of room for improvement. Just to name a few: there are no clear instructions in betting shops on how to get the app, searching for it in App Store is quite challenging and confusing. And once users download the app, they are in for a lengthy process of registering which is extra dauting if a user doesn’t already have and needs to get a special loyalty card.  

Betting providers are introducing these loyalty cards to increase digital users. This card is a first step to becoming an online user and contains all the needed personal information about a user. The card holder also receives offers with additional betting features such as ‘Best Odds’. The steps are as follows:  a person goes to a retail shop, provides some personal data (in a handwritten form) and after a lengthy process which is confusing and involves a lot of unnecessary steps, numerous push notifications and confirmation emails, and finally one can make a bet online. 

Researching and applying service design to cut this drawn-out onboarding process and make the whole experience for the end-user smoother and at the same time in line with all the other service offerings was the task Symphony Solutions’ Design Office took on. After initial interviews and research, the team narrowed down the challenges to the following: 

• Increasing the number of online users. 
• Removing obstacles and decreasing time taken in getting the loyalty card. 
• Increasing the visibility of the loyalty card and raising the level of awareness.

Solution

According to the roadmap created by the design team, the initial user journey from having the intention to place a bet to creating the account required 36 steps.

From the user perspective, some of these actions, like filling in your personal information with pen and paper and then helping the assistant to decipher the handwriting, or confusing steps in the apps itself (i.e. the problem with user name or a password) provide for high levels of frustration and would significantly hamper the conversion process.

Using service design, the design team analyzed the main goals of users (I.e. ‘Best Odds’) and the business (getting users online) and satisfied both needs instantly by moving them to the beginning of the user journey. The first dramatic cut down suggested involves removing the physical card by being one step ahead and already giving the card to users in QR code form. The other improvements of the user journey include letting users fill in their personal data already in the app, auto-population of some fields, removing shop assistants from the journey.

As a result, the final solution presented by the design team strips down the onboarding process to just 13 steps.

Result

With the implementation of Service Design and omnichannel approach, the client was able to:

• Cut down the onboarding user journey by 60 %.

• Removed the initial step of receiving the physical card by offering it to users in advance in QR code form.

• Automated the flow and letting the system predict all the steps for users.

• Removed all assistants from the user journey to create a digital step-by-step experience.

• Discarded all the unnecessary steps (e.g. filling the personal data manually).

• Changed the service model and made it beneficial for both business and users by using already available resources.

• Creating omnichannel experience that has the same level of service both online and offline.