Operators admit true omnichannel success remains elusive
Despite omnichannel being the buzz word of this week’s SBC Summit Americas, a panel of operators and data suppliers agreed Wednesday that a truly seamless omnichannel formula remains elusive.
Ongoing struggles to manage the full data requirements and gain buy-in across both the land-based and digital sides of the business, remain the primary barriers to cracking omnichannel delivery.
Speaking on the Omnichannel Strategy For Enhanced Customer Experience panel yesterday, operators Betfred US and BetMGM admitted that, while they are pursuing omnichannel strategies, it is still something that they have varying degrees of success in achieving.
“There are inherent differences in the two ways the businesses are measured, the expectations that are set,” said Matt Prevost, Chief Revenue Officer at BetMGM, explaining why breaking totally free of silos between land-based and digital can be so challenging.
“Anything that touches physical implementation, big organizational rollout that often exists in retail, is just inherently more complicated and more difficult. And sometimes a lot of our challenges come from different expectations as it relates to the time it takes to do various activities, as compared to the retail business and the online business, it is just harder,” he added.
“No one’s truly omnichannel yet,” added Lee Terfloth, Chief Interactive Officer, Gaming, at Delaware North. “We still have separate development teams. We still have separate slot teams, but we’re getting better every year as an industry, and as operators.”
“We all say that we want the customers to have one experience, joint experience, no matter where we go. It’s true,” said Kresimir Spajic, Chief Executive at Betfred US. “But also it’s okay to realize that these are fundamentally different experiences, playing online, or going to a brick-and-mortar order place.”
Optimove SVP Product and GM Americas Shai Frank offered a more nuanced look at the processes involved in unifying data and segmenting offerings for customers across both sides of the business.
“If it’s a true omni player, you will probably treat them separately from someone who’s primarily online, just first-time land-based, or occasionally land-based, or the opposite,” he said.
“Many times, the barrier is not the technology, it’s the organizational structure, the siloed teams that are worried that one side is cannibalising the other side so they’re reluctant to share data or to expose the right ways to share data.
“So, sometimes technology is the barrier. But as time goes by, it’s less and less of a barrier. It’s organizations that really adopt an omnichannel strategy and transform the way that they work, the way that they think, that are the ones that are gaining a lead.”
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