How to move a number

When we’re talking to operators we nearly always lead with a simple claim:

“We increase the number of your customers who will successfully complete and pass financial checks”

It helps that we are telling the truth, but it often leads to a conversation about what percentage is achievable. Most operators are currently hovering somewhere between 5 and 10% for this number. As a result, they sometimes express surprise when we say that some of our customers are enjoying a 45% check completion rate, of which 75% are then passed by the operator.

Is it really possible to get to those numbers? The short answer is ‘yes’, but the slightly longer answer follows (if you haven’t got time for the slightly longer answer, feel free to contact ClearStake immediately and we can talk you through it in person.

Moving a number involves thinking about the whole challenge

I’m desperately trying to avoid using the word ‘holistic’ here, but sometimes it’s the only thing that really fits: when we have any challenge that involves moving a number, we take an integrated view of the challenge and proceed accordingly.

We do that for registration to deposit, for example, and indeed for deposit to first bet or tenth bet. Why would the percentage of financial checks successfully completed be any different? The answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t.

Ultimately there are all sorts of elements to the broader challenge of ‘getting customers to complete financial checks’, and to get that number up towards 50% then you have to be doing everything, or nearly everything, right.

Doing one or two things in isolation won’t get you all the way there. Indeed, even speaking as the representative of a product company, I wouldn’t pretend that adopting a single product (even one as amazing as ClearStake) will make all the difference. When you instead think of the whole problem, a variety of interesting possibilities and questions open up, including:

• Are we measuring this number and monitoring improvement? What gets measured gets managed. If you aren’t already measuring and recording your performance when it comes to financial check completion rates, start now. There’s nothing like working towards a target!
• Are we asking people to complete checks at the right place in their player journey? It may be beneficial to ask the question a little earlier, before play is interrupted, rather than waiting until a customer arrives at a hard limit.
• Are we using the right communications channels to speak to customers? If you are just sending a single email, don’t expect a huge take up. Approach compliance challenges the same way you would marketing ones: build programs across email, SMS, in-app messaging, live chat and so on, rather than one-off, single-channel messages.
• Are we phrasing our requests in the right way? Just because it is a compliance message doesn’t mean it needs to be dry as dust. Look at alternative approaches to capture the customer’s attention - see what works
• Are we getting our retention team involved? Your customer retention team has a vested interest in ensuring checks are carried out in the most effective way possible. Ask them to help. They are usually good at getting people to do things!
• Are we fast enough? When the time comes for a check, do you get communications out to the customer promptly, and do you make decisions quickly once you have the information you need?
• Are we using the right product? Yes, it does matter. Every aspect of the process has to be examined, and not all products are the same. The good ones can make a significant difference, the less good may encourage you to reach all the wrong conclusions. Speaking of which…

A note on ‘Open Banking’

If there’s one phrase we hear a lot and we also dislike a lot it is “we tried Open Banking and it didn’t work”. 

What ‘didn’t work’ in a situation like this was the combination of an Open Banking product that wasn’t fit for purpose, and a belief that adopting the product alone (rather than examining the whole challenge) was going to be good enough.

The truth is, Open Banking DOES work. We know it does, because we make it work every day. It works as part of an optimised process that gives your business every opportunity to succeed. What definitely doesn’t work is muddling on the way most operators are today, some of whom are now haemorrhaging customers to smarter operators who know what a difference this approach makes.

I’ll leave you with one final piece of good news. The ClearStake team is full of grizzled old industry veterans who can help anybody answer the questions above - and make a real difference to your top line. Just get in touch.

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