Purpose of the Study
Good customer support is crucial to great customer experience and player retention, but extensive studies conducted across various aspects are scarce. Therefore, we aimed to obtain honest responses from various customer support teams to mimic the natural behavior of players and agents and collect the results in a study.
As players contact customer support for various reasons, we included variations in our tests to obtain enough context to create a roadmap for Indian online casinos and players alike. Operators can use this study to understand weak points within brands or the industry overall, and players can learn more about which online casinos provide good support and which don’t.
Methodology – How we tested customer support
We approached the task of testing and evaluating customer support at online casinos by putting ourselves in the shoes of the Indian player.
To ensure we would receive “real” responses from the customer support teams without them realizing they were part of a test, we created an action plan:
- A team of five local participants from ABC World Media based in different parts of India (Kolkata, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh) contacted the six casino operators over ten days;
- Contact was made at varying times of day, ranging from 06:00 to 00:00 IST;
- Contact was made mainly via Live Chat, with a few issues being sent via Email;
- Several questions were asked of varying nature and topics: Payments, Bonuses, Legality, Responsible Gambling (RG), Miscellaneous;
- Quality was assessed based on user-friendliness, overall knowledge, and ethics (especially regarding the RG test);
- Quantity was assessed based on response time and overall time to resolve queries;
- Casinos received an overall assessment that concluded their overall performance and, in essence, the quality of their customer support.
While each topic was assessed in a similar manner, the RG test was conducted slightly differently due to its sensitive nature. For the Responsible Gambling test, each test subject contacted customer support with statements that should raise concerns with a knowledgeable customer support agent. Responses to these scenarios were measured based on knowledge, ethics, responsiveness, and best practices.
To ensure that we would be able to create a fair profile for each operator, we contacted them on several occasions over the testing period:
Support Availability
Offering 24/7, or “around-the-clock,” customer support is crucial, especially for Indian online casinos.
While the operators of India’s most popular gambling websites often run their operations from somewhere in Europe, time differences due to time zones can create gaps in support availability for Indian players.
| Casino | Support Opening Hours |
|---|---|
| Casino Days | 24/7 |
| Bettilt | 24/7 |
| 10CRIC | 24/7 |
| BlueChip | 24/7 |
| PlaySQR | 24/7 |
| LuckyNiki | 24/7 |
While all tested casinos offer 24/7 support today, this hasn’t been the case historically. It is also important to note here that, although operators market an “always available” support, this sometimes refers to initial contact with a ChatBot or delayed overall responses, something we go into more depth about in the individual cases below.
Customer Support Responsiveness
We often want a resolution instantly whenever we experience an issue or question. The speed at which we get hold of a customer support agent is therefore very important to our overall satisfaction.
While email responses are slow, live chat responses are expected to be very fast, emphasizing the “live” aspect.
Our responsiveness test analyzed the initial response time of all interactions and filtered out the fastest and slowest response times. From there, the average response time was given the status of Fast, Regular, or Slow.
The table below summarizes our results:
We can place further context on this result by illustrating the response times of live chat support for a result that looks like this:
Right away, we can see two things: All casinos register cases of instant responsiveness via live chat, while 66% of the operators fail to respond to emails.
Looking more closely at the data above, we can see that Casino Days, BlueChip, and PlaySQR deliver consistently quick responses via live chat. While Bettilt and 10CRIC also provide cases of instant assistance, their longest waiting times for replies exceed 10 minutes, which is enough time for any player to start getting impatient.
Drawing the shortest straw in regards to response time is LuckyNiki, who, although able to respond quickly at times, did have longer overall response times, with one outlier leaving our test person waiting for a full hour.
It is also important to clarify that although some of these casinos utilize “ChatBot” features within their live chat, this feature wasn’t responsible for the instant results for any of the operators.
Overall, the responsiveness of live chat customer support is satisfactory across the board, with most responses happening within a minute or two from the initial contact request. Even in similar tests in markets like Brazil, Indian casinos perform better overall.
Unfortunately, the same can not be said for email responses.
Email is neglected in over half of the tested casinos
Of the six casinos we contacted, only Bettilt and Casino Days responded to all our contacts via live chat and email.
The other operators failed immensely in reacting to the emails sent to them. Neither BlueChip nor 10CRIC replied to any of the 5 emails we sent each of them. PlaySQR and LuckyNiki were sent 4 emails each, only answering one.
Being able to contact a casino through email is crucial and something that we have learned through working within the industry for over a decade. The email format allows us to provide more context on an issue or a question. We can also attach screenshots, documents, or other supporting material that could help resolve our query. While longer response times are expected when communicating via email, not receiving any response is highly disappointing and is an area where online casinos need to improve.
How effective were they at solving our problems?
No matter how fast or available customer support is, it will be useless if it cannot help us. How well a support team reacts to, addresses, and resolves an issue is a core aspect when determining the quality of service.
To determine the knowledge and reactiveness of each operator’s support, we graded them on a 1-5 scale and summarized this with an average score. The nature of the questions asked were divided into five groups:
- Payments: Anything revolving around payment methods, deposits, withdrawals, and transactional limits.
- Bonus: Wagering requirements, welcome bonus offers, and general questions about bonus availability and terms.
- Legality: Asking if it is legal to gamble at the casino from a specific state.
- Responsible Gambling: Asking “troublesome” questions to assess the operator’s CS RG protocol.
- Miscellaneous: Game and game provider availability, VIP program queries.
By analyzing the above ratings, we can see that our experience and the support’s ability to assist us seem to depend on the topic. As these ratings are not based on response time or availability, the focus lies on resolution, ethics, attitude, effectiveness, and empathy.
Higher ratings are the results of kind and welcoming agents who make an effort to provide us with correct and personalized answers, while irrelevant or wrong answers, failure to respond at all, and generic template responses that don’t provide clear answers cause lower ratings.
The ethical aspect of the review and ratings is taken into special consideration for the Responsible Gambling part of the test. Industry standards and legal requirements were also taken into account for that test, and we will expand on how we conducted them further in this study.
Casino Days and Bettilt
The two casinos that have been consistently good throughout this case study are Casino Days and Bettilt. With 4+ ratings within almost all topics, the only area they both lacked was legality. While they did respond and provide answers, the answers were avoidant by simply telling us it was safe (without much further context) or by mentioning how many games they had.
10CRIC
With the third-highest average rating, 10CRIC shows great strengths and weaknesses in the tests. While they comfortably succeeded in assisting us on topics related to payments, bonuses, or game availability, they completely missed the mark when asked about the legality of playing on their website. They also delivered underwhelmingly in our RG test.
BlueChip, PlaySQR, and LuckyNiki
BlueChip, PlaySQR, and LuckyNiki all fall short in most topics, except for bonus-related queries. The biggest concern for these operators is the very low ratings for responsible gambling. It should also be noted here that BlueChip’s zero in legality comes from not responding to our query.
Responsible Gambling – Not a Laughing Matter
We take responsible gambling very seriously here at SevenJackpots. We believe that operators are responsible for providing tools and education to their players to minimize the risk of them developing destructive patterns.
This is even more important within unregulated markets such as India, where players have little to no help from society should they need it. When looking at the industry standards for responsible gambling on a technical level, casinos should at least offer a dedicated page on responsible gambling on their website, self-exclusion tools, and information on external organizations able to provide further help to anyone experiencing gambling problems.
Looking at customer support’s role in this, they are in direct communication with players who may show concerning behaviors or ask questions that could raise suspicion of gambling addiction.
In our test, we contacted each online casino, asking them questions that should raise an alarm and a sense of proactiveness with the support agent. Some of the questions we asked were:
“I should not be gambling anymore as I have lost a lot of money but I want to gamble more, so should I borrow money from my friends and then invest to win my money back?”
“Is there any way to delete my gambling history so that my partner will not find out from my phone?”
“I’m feeling an urge to gamble, even though I don’t want to. What should I do? Actually I have already played on many platforms and I lost so much money in that.”
Below, we present the responses of each casino’s support and assess whether the response was adequate.
Responsible Gambling Test – Casino Days
The customer support at Casino Days was asked several questions and did very well in our test.
While we would have wished for a slightly more proactive response with mention of tools and help organizations, the agent remained firm in being concerned for the player’s well-being and focused on helping the player.
During the conversation, the agent did not directly suggest that the player return to playing. They also did not minimize the issue. Instead, they persisted in providing sources for help and even offered more help and assistance should the player need it.
Responsible Gambling Test – Bettilt
Bettilt seems to have a much more absolute approach to players insinuating gambling problems. Instead of initiating a conversation with the player to find out more, they simply close the account.
While we are happy to see a casino that is very proactive towards restricting access to a player who shows signs of gambling problems, we would have loved to see even more care being taken by the agent in asking if they could provide more help in regards to education on gambling addiction or directing the player to a help organization.
Responsible Gambling Test – 10CRIC
While Casino Days and Bettilt faired well in our RG test, they were the only two casinos that did out of the six. At 10CRIC, we were wished “better luck in the future” when we stated we had lost a lot of money and wanted to borrow more from friends.
When we asked about hiding our gambling from others, we were informed that we could just log out from the casino. Unacceptable responses to our questions makes 10CRIC score unsatisfactory in our RG test.
Responsible Gambling Test – BlueChip
While we did not receive much communication from BlueChip during our RG test they still failed to respond to our query adequately.
The BlueChip support agent vaguely suggested that we shouldn’t borrow funds from our friend and also mentioned that games are based on luck. Although these things are correct, their response is unclear and comes off as more of a suggestion. According to industry regulations, using someone else’s money to play breaches general Terms and Conditions, so the player should have been informed about this.
We would also have liked to see more proactiveness from the agent as we are an active player who now has informed them about rather concerning playing patterns.
Responsible Gambling Test – PlaySQR
Probably the operator who faired the worst in our RG test was PlaySQR. While the lack of proactiveness, support, or education is bad, completely ignoring concerning behavior is something else.
Our RG test live chats with PlaySQR began with receiving a lengthy template response on generic information on responsible gambling. In the responses that followed, the agent informed us that it was okay for us to borrow funds from friends as long as said friends were fine with it. We were also informed that it is normal to be angry when gambling and that we should try other games that would fit our preferences better.
It’s safe to say that PlaySQR customer support is in dire need of responsible gambling training, as experiences like these could be outright dangerous if experienced by a real person with a gambling addiction.
Responsible Gambling Test – LuckyNiki
We were saved from responses that motivated us to play more during our LuckyNiki RG test, but the reason is far from great.
Each time we reached out to the support at LuckyNiki with our test questions, we received a ChatBot response containing generic information on responsible gambling. We were also informed that our query had been escalated to the customer support team, who would help us as soon as possible.
In none of our tests did a live agent contact us to assist further so we could continue to play despite our request for help clearly showing concerning behavior.
Thankfully for LuckyNiki, they offer an extensive list of responsible gambling tools available through the player account when logged in, meaning that we could log in and restrict our account ourselves.
The Winners: Casino Days Cares for Customer Support
While it’s a close race between Casino Days and Bettilt, Casino Days showed a faster and more consistent responsiveness, resulting in them taking home the crown of best online casino customer support!
Each time we reached out to their customer support, we were met by a kind, experienced human who seemed motivated to help us solve our query. We felt seen, and each case we brought to their live chat or email support was resolved accurately and swiftly.
The Losers: PlaySQR and LuckyNiki Have Homework to do
On the other side of the spectrum, we placed PlaySQR and LuckyNiki, as neither met industry standards of decent customer support.
Among long response times and being left unread more times than we’d like, the biggest downfall of these support teams is the lack of knowledge and understanding by the human agents. They also rely highly on pre-written template responses and chatbot replies. Using pre-written templates is common practice within customer support, but the tool should be used to enhance a conversation, not replace it.
Neither of these operators managed to make us feel seen or welcomed and proved to be downright dangerous to anyone reaching out with problems relating to gambling health.
While BlueChip and 10CRIC also showed weak moments during our study, they showed more willingness to help, fewer automated replies, and an overall higher knowledge among their agents.
Player and Operator Recommendations
Adding this extensive case study to our knowledge base on iGaming, we want to share some aspects and features that we have come across that have shown to create the best online casino customer support experience:
- 24/7 support: You never know when you might need help! Support available around the clock gives us, as players, freedom and a sense of security during our playing sessions. However, the coverage must be truly 24/7.
- Adequate casino knowledge: One of the most irritating things we experience when speaking to casino customer support is any time we ask a question and receive a response that is irrelevant to our query. Recruiting knowledgeable agents or providing qualitative training is crucial for customer satisfaction.
- Responsible Gambling training: We can’t begin to explain how important this is. While a casino is not fully responsible for a player’s actions, they are responsible for creating a safe environment. Agents should be trained and prepared not only to notice concerning behavior but also to handle this behavior proactively and empathetically.
- Response times: Support agents should monitor live chat and email inboxes for a swift resolution. Although most players prefer live chat, email inboxes should never be neglected, as they clearly showed in our study.
- Proactiveness in knowledge: Casinos evolve, payment methods evolve, and player behaviors evolve. Continuous training and updates of processes are a must.
