Betting – one of the most regulated, highly anonymous fields. So how to find out who your customers really are so that you can effectively communicate with them? That was the task for us.
The challenge
People bet anonymously. Therefore, it’s hard to communicate with them. Majority of Sazka’s customers bet using their terminals. Most of these bettors stay anonymous. That makes it difficult for Sazka to effectively communicate with its own customers and to raise turnover.
To change that they created Sazka Loyalty Club. Even though hundreds of players set up an account and got their card, there was room for improvement in terms of actual usage. People did not feel the need to take it out of their wallet and often did not even have it with them.
The goal of the project and Direct People’s task was to find a way to motivate people to use their card more often – aiming at 40% of transactions traceable to a concrete customer, and potentially also growing bet volumes.
Collecting experience, understanding problems
We call it discovery and it’s essentially field work. We met real service users and conducted detailed interviews (so-called empathies) with them. We visited newsstands and talked to sellers and customers across the Czech Republic to collect their stories.
The interviews revealed that long series of losses are demotivating. One idea was to immediately offer an additional game to bettors. We decided to move this concept forward.
Kolo štěstí – mission accomplished
We designed a prototype and a process to verify if it would be successful. In just two months we built a fully functional web app called Kolo štěstí (Wheel of Fortune). We tested it at 8 selling points where it was spun more than 10 000 times.
The only condition to play was to use the Sazka Loyalty Club card when purchasing Sazka’s products. The result? The concept turned out to be very attractive even for occasional players.
Prototyping resulted in 200% increase of identified payments as well as an increase in overall sales at all test sites. We exceeded the target by far.
And what was next?
At the beginning of 2020, Sazka developed a final proposition of Kolo štěstí. It was 90% identical with the original prototype. However, it was necessary to retest it before national launch. The “technical pilot” verified functionalities and customer processes over one month. Then came the crucial “business pilot” in East Bohemia, covering about a tenth of Sazka’s retail network.
Over 5 weeks, they evaluated customer behavior changes compared to the rest of the country. Both tests yielded excellent results. After final touch-ups, Kolo štěstí was launched nationwide in July 2020.
The number of customers using the loyalty card and identified turnover both jumped. The app scored exceptionally well even with scratchcard customers. It delivered incremental sales, improved customer journey, and greater gamification. For 60% of customers, betting became more attractive.
After success in retail, Sazka decided to offer a similar experience online at Sazka.cz. We helped again with the proposition – but that’s another story.
What They Say
„We wanted to understand the behaviour and wishes of our customers and attend to their real needs. We were looking for a way to build a product that will truly be to their taste. Our cooperation with Direct People showed us that such solutions can be found. Moreover our people are different after working on Kolo štěstí project. We are no longer inventing what the customer wants in the meeting room but we are asking them directly.”
Aleš Veselý
Chief Marketing Officer, SAZKA
About Sazka
The number one in the Czech lottery business.Established in 1956, Sazka is the leading Czech lottery company with over 60 years of tradition.