“Currently, we have some ways to identify players that are about to churn or have churned. But we have no way to reactivate them besides communication or adjustments (basically just topping up their wallet balance).  Adjustments (giving money) are not working as a reactivation tool, since players are mostly just withdrawing their funds and for players that won’t come back we will not be able to take the money back for legal reasons. We therefore need to have more tools that we can use to reduce the churn rate and increase engagement from players. This could then be integrated and used in a future CMS, by our VIP manager, the CS team and our marketing team.”

To begin the process of tackling the problem, while onboarding the company staff to the concepts of UX. I conducted a creative workshop, by bringing in both key staff, management and business owners to brainstorm and map ideas. We conceptualised various strategies to enhance player reactivation and retention.

Note: that these casino games are available on all IGaming websites, and we cant change the games themselves. We needed to do something extra. So, I asked 'Beyond just the game content, how can we make the experience fun, engaging and simple enough to keep users returning and playing.' I.e. unique to us.

I also preloaded the meeting with some research to keep in mind. A focus on good UX, Customer service, Personas, VIP membership, variations in market localisation, timing, and communication are all factors to consider, all about the combination of a good customer experience and our business goals.

Yet with the simple deposit and play system, and smooth account management and easy withdraws, it became evident that a generalised clean user experience was not the problem. What we needed was a was to keep our users more engaged.

Gamification quickly became a suggested favourite among all present.

The first, simplest thing to design & build was the of issuing rewards.

As is good design practice, I started with identifying OKR's, product requirements, and wireframes to map out the flows without the distractions of branding.

The above example is related to first logging in, and the initial onboarding to the rewards processes. The centred pop up is nice and clear, with straightforward 'tap here' instructions. After some play & turnover (seen on WF 3) they see a notification of something waiting in the menu section for them, plus a little reward box toast.

Mystery boxes containing free spins and money drops, were designed to surprise and delight players, In the form of mystery boxes gifted to players. This can be triggered in a variety of ways as will be demonstrated. The content of the gift boxes could include free spins, money drops, and boost to the ability to level quickly (XP boosts).

Bellow you can see various designs for multiple brands.

Above is my internal back office system and how agents can generate rewards. The reward type, amount, games, dates and player list are added here.

This avoids everything having to be generated on a code level, via this no-code CMS solution. CS staff could also issue rewards on the go in response to customer interactions. It's also the first steps in being able to create special event campaigns for say holiday sessions.

Thereafter, due to found difficulties of implementing across multi-brands and markets, I identified the need for a strategy change away from Levels/Leagues.

The solution I innovated as a response to this, I named ‘Challenges’.

Challenges are in-product, individual, repeated or sequential set of tasks, that once completed result in a predefined reward. There are different challenge types.

A challenge that requires the completion of a single task.

A challenge wherein users play a set number of spins, or spend a total turnover, so to fill up a progress bar. 

Or a challenge where the user may need to make multiple sequential actions over a set numbers of days, e.g. logging in daily or making sequential deposits

Rather than users only being informed via an email requests to e.g ‘deposit ‘X’ and receive ‘Y’, a challenge instead works as an interactive gamified component. This approach provided flexibility and was easier to implement while still offering an engaging and rewarding experience.

The first Challenge implement was the ‘Source of Wealth Challenge’.  A small reward was already being offered to some players, via an email notification, for completed document uploads.

The concept of making this a gamified 'challenge' turned what is normally considered an very boring experience into a gamified experience, adding a small sense of fun for new users, as well as onboarding said users to the challenges system.

It was also to first, easiest, logical step in development.

The sequential deposits challenge, resulted in a measurable revenue uplift.

Rewards would be given for making deposits when requested.

This simple strategy could be looped a set number of times, but does require a spend via play, so to protect against bad actors, who would just withdraw new deposits plus any given rewards.

The goal with the sequential deposit rewards was to increase retention in the early player lifecycle.

The retention of players first joining our casino with in the 10 weeks consistently performed better. On average, the rate of players coming back to us weekly was 33% higher than before.

After launch, average deposit amounts almost doubled, from an average of around 36 Euro per player increasing to 64. 

Average withdrawals increased with around the same percentage, but it still led to a boosted margin, increasing to 20% per active player per week.

Here we see visualisation of average deposit amounts, player margin, retention rate across our different Nordic and Japan market, plus an average metrics overview piechart.

Summary: We see a very positive effect on retention and deposit value.

Another noteworthy idea was 'Challenge tiers.' Challenges are grouped into tier levels, and must be completed in order to unlock the next, containing more demanding challenges but greater rewards.

As seen this the above example, free spins given on one tier (e.g ‘Do 100 Spins on Book of Dead - receive 20 free spins on Kluster Krystals’) and then feed in the to challenge on the following tier (e.g Complete 100 spin on Kluster Krystals get 20 free spins on Sweet bonanza) and so on. Players can see what they need to do to unlock the next level, and the growing rewards therein, as an ever rolling sense of gamified progression.

Using only the player ID. This system creates an experience of levelling without need to connect this system to any specific user profile info.

Gamification proved to be a powerful tool for enhancing player engagement and retention.

By understanding our players and aligning our strategies with their motivations, we were able to create a more engaging and rewarding experience and boosted our profitability.