Most important factors for bingo players

[JennyL]

Tweet

What do you think are the most important factors for players when they choose where to play bingo?

Affiliates know more than anyone how important it is for bingo operators to have great customer service. After all, you probably hear it from your players all the time. Why is customer service important? If problems don’t get resolved quickly, players feel frustrated and annoyed and they lose a certain attachment to the bingo operator. When choosing a bingo program to promote, affiliates will often look at the quality of customer service so as to gauge how much player loyalty and player retention is valued in that bingo operator. In a nutshell, the better your merchant is at retaining players through methods like strong customer service, the more commissions you will probably be able to generate in the long run, improving your ROI.

It’s important that customer service should come in various formats: at minimum there should be a free phone number, email and live chat. Some operators even provide a call back which can be a nice service for players. The “help” section should be very thorough and be able to resolve most player problems and questions.

With the success of tombola’s free £5 campaign, and players asking about how they can claim their free £5 voucher, customer service at tombola.co.uk really became a priority. However, it’s not all hard work at tombola.co.uk! What makes it nice at tombola bingo is the human factor behind their customer service, and this is something that your players will really appreciate. Take Lisa Staples, 30, from Sunderland who has worked for tombola.co.uk for two years – perhaps your players are familiar with her? She deals with a range of duties including queries, technical advice and customer wins, which Lisa adds “always puts a smile on my face”. This friendly community factor, which players, CMs, and customer support representatives contribute to, is what truly makes tombola stand out as a premier online bingo operator for the UK market and makes their affiliate programme easy to promote. As Lisa puts it, “I enjoy answering the few calls we receive from customers who want help on issues like this as they are always friendly and thankful for the advice ... Since I have started work at tombola.co.uk I have met so many people and have made many good friends.”

As an affiliate, it’s important to know what your players enjoy the most about their favourite bingo operators.

What have you heard is the most important? Please share your comments with us!

[Michael_Anthony]

It's having a bingo hall just down the road that really counts, and lots of those big chunky marker pens. Also, wide, deep comfy seats, as most bingo players are pretty fat

[newark]

Good question - I'm interested in the answer to that too, having just bought myself a decent bingo domain...

Cheers

[JennyL]

I think the most important factors:
- fantastic customer service (to keep players happy)
- unique and fun games (to differentiate from other bingo operators)
- awesome bingo community (isn't that the whole point?)

While bonuses and promos are great, and can get players in (for the short term), really what you want is good player retention and for your players to become quality players and be in there for the long term.

[EricaA]

I agree with Jenny on all of the above points :tup

Players are looking for high-quality bingo software which provides them with a wide variety of regularly updated games. They're savvy and won't just settle for the same old selections. They want new and innovative options.

[Aspirin]

Players are looking for high-quality bingo software which provides them with a wide variety of regularly updated games. They're savvy and won't just settle for the same old selections. They want new and innovative options.

Yes, do you know a site that has these things?

[JennyL]

For pretty unique games, tombola has my vote as they use their own software (so no other bingo operator have games like it). Examples of the more unique games from tombola:
- Rollercoaster: imagine bingo on a rollercoaster!
- Bandit: like the slots, except you play against the room rather than the machine
- Battleship: like the boardgame, except instead of one opponent, you play against the room and the first to wipe out the enemies' ships wins.

And my favourite...
Hamster Race - like those casino horse/greyhound races, except with little cute hamsters with character. They are sooo adorable - cuteness overload! :tup

[Aspirin]

Tombola are ok, but the bonuses let them down.

My vote would go for Game Village who also have lots of unique games like Dingo, SuperGems and Elimination Bingo.

They also offer new players £20 free before they have to deposit and a 250% deposit bonus on there first deposit. As like Tombola they use there own software which is very unique.

[gregdpowell]

All the points that Jenny made are great selling points. It's great to have a bingo product on your own network because it allows you do a variety of games and changes on the fly. The deposit bonus is still a pretty big factor. Here is what I have found that is both good for bingo players and operators alike - frequent reload and re-deposit bonuses. Bingo players are about the least likely to cash out so rewarding them with 2-3 deposit bonuses and then a small (25%) monthly reload is the way to go.