Consumer experience is the main driving force behind player loyalty, an aspect of the business online gambling and online poker companies seem to not handle particularly well, despite the major potential windfall involved. It seems that in online gaming, building sturdy player loyalty, based on the consumer experience is not exactly one of the easiest propositions.

For starters, it is quite incredible how in this day and age, there are still operators out there who completely fail to grasp the importance of delivering the sort of consumer experience that will have players coming back to the table. This lack of regard for the impression created in the player is not directly proportional with the perceived importance of a brand either. There are small online casinos/poker rooms out there, which offer a superb player experience and which honor their players’ withdrawals every time in a timely manner, and there are big-name brands, which show utter contempt towards their players. Full Tilt Poker’s old version (before online poker’s Black Friday sidelined the gang of crooks then at the helm of the company) was a superb example in this respect. They were utterly unprofessional in the way they handled player-to-player money transfers and subsequent withdrawals, treating players with contempt and cracking “wise” one-liners at the expense of those trying to get to their monies. In hindsight, all this was not surprising though, considering the way their then-management treated player funds in general.

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Obviously, online gaming customer experience does not resume to the quality/lack thereof of support. It is a total package, which covers every kind of imaginable software-related issue, player liquidity (in the case of online poker operations), deposit and withdrawal options, and just about everything concerning any sort of player interaction. With that in mind, it’s obvious that offering top-notch customer experience is no easy feat in online gaming. In addition to that, other factors hamper the efficiency of customer experience being used as a tool of recruitment/player loyalty motivation.

According to a survey done in Britain, online gaming customers are a lot less likely to recommend a product to their friends based on customer experience than in the banking, mobile, travel and retail sectors. According to the said survey, only around 47% of online gamblers would recommend an online casino/poker product, which – although obviously a handicap for operators – is still a rather significant percentage.

The reason behind the unimpressive numbers may be a certain stigma associated with the activity, which makes some players a lot less eager to share what they’re doing online with their peers.

The bottom line is that it still pays for online gaming companies to aim for customer experience as a means of not only retaining existing customers but of acquiring new ones too. In what areas should online gaming operators aim to improve in order to improve the customer experience then? Obviously, the best odds/best return is the most important factor in this respect. A user-friendly website and a good customer service come in second and third, while attractive promotions and quick problem-solving skills on the part of the support staff bring up the rear.