32Red places 1st in customer service audit

In a recently reported “Independent Audit” of the customer service quality of 16 of the biggest online casino operators, 32Red Casino has come out on top.

Just how independent the audit was may be up for debate and this is touched on further below, but this issue aside, what a great idea for an audit.

A group named etruvian consulting anonymously tested the customer support services of 32Red, Intercasino, Betsson, bet365, Bwin.party, Mr Green, Ladbrokes, BetFred, Betaway, Paddy Power, William Hill, Betfair, Casino770, Betway, Club World and 3Dice and assessed overall quality against 7 criteria which were:

• Accessibility
  Range of customer service channels (phone, email, live chat etc) and time availability of these channels (24/7 or or less)
• Response Times
  Measured email response times (live chat and phone clearly not applicable here)
• Product Knowledge
  This was the most heavily weighted criteria in determination of overall scores and it tested customer service representative knowledge for accuracey and completeness across a range of product areas: Games; Account Management & Security; Financial; Client Features; Promotions; Technical.
• Presentation
  Language quality, grammar and formatting of written responses to queries. All queries were in English, which the audit noted was not the first language of all operator’s primary markets or support personnel (ie primary market language may have been superior).
• Personalisation
  The warm and fuzzy stuff…did the customer feel like a person or a number?  
  
• Friendliness
  Bit more of the above with consideration of empathy, manners, etiquette displayed. How good were they at making  customer feel that their query was welcomed.
• Extra Mile
  Was the rep happy to provide additional helpful information beyond scope of initial query (s)?
  

First I’d like to commend etruvian on the concept of a customer service audit. Great idea. And if the conduct of the audit was as thorough as the reported results (all 39 pages!) then this was no ‘quick and dirty’.

If I had a dollar for every time I opened a live chat window only to get the message ‘live chat is presently offline‘ I’d have enough to buy a Bitcoin. If I also had a dollar for every time a customer support rep either didn’t know or gave the wrong answer to a question (eg does your Microgaming live casino accept Canadian players?) I could probably buy a couple (…of Bitcoins). Bad support is frustrating. Particularly when your need to enlist the services of a customer support agent is usually borne out of a source of frustration in the first place.

The results

32Red came out on top with an overall score of 8.8/10.

Betfair brought up the rear with an overall score or 5.1/10

How independent was the auditor?

I’d have to say, not very. Not that this necessarily tainted the outcome. It also should be said that 32Red is one of the names that always seems to get bandied around in conversations about great service & support at some of the better known player forums so they have form in this area and have done for a long time.

Back to the question of independence though, etruvian also run a casino website site named Casino Check. That site is affiliated with 4 online casinos, one of which is 32Red. None of the other 16 casinos subject to the audit are currently listed.