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There are over 2.8 billion gamers worldwide, creating a gaming industry that’s expected to be worth over $200 billion by the end of 2023. This is fueled in no small part by YouTubers, influencers and the highly connected communities they’ve created.
To cut through the busy market and take a slice of these billions, gaming creators are naturally focused on designing and building world-class games and experiences. However, while the gaming experience may be second-to-none, if the customer experience isn’t aligned or doesn’t meet these same high standards, then a developer risks losing its competitive edge.
In a customer service benchmark report by Netomi, 3,000 gaming companies from 75 countries were surveyed. The results indicated that as an industry, gaming must do much better when it comes to delivering good customer service. For example, only 53% of gaming companies worldwide have a readily accessible email address, and of those, 76% ignore a simple customer service email asking for a game recommendation.
Here are six steps that can help one of the largest industries improve the customer support experience.
The gaming community is vast and loyal, yet highly critical. Get something wrong, and gamers have a myriad of ways and places to share insights. Creating a place where gamers can easily share their feedback and concerns allows a company to take the issue offline and gain valuable insights to inform future game iterations at the same time. This more personalized approach to customer experience enables gaming developers to respond quicker and deliver better customer experience.
By their very nature, modern gamers expect instant access to every aspect of their gaming journey; from console switch on, to loading the game, to in-play activity. While many developers have honed their user experience to ensure gamers gain fast, frictionless access to their games, the same isn’t always the case when it comes to customer experience. And when it comes to in-play activity, this presents a major issue – if a technical glitch is stopping a player fulfilling their task, and they can’t get immediate help from the gaming company, then frustration will mount. Ensuring quick and easy ways for players to make contact and being as responsive to those enquiries as possible is critical.
As we know, gamers are part of large communities where they share tips, tricks, successes, and failures. These online networks are also often the go-to place for players to seek advice if they find themselves with an issue, not least because as the evidence above suggests, the gaming industry hasn’t got the best reputation when it comes to customer service. Having a customer support team that monitors those communities and becomes an active member of them will only serve to enhance the overall customer experience.
AI-powered chatbots have infiltrated and enhanced almost all sectors worldwide. Recent statistics show that, with a 24.9% growth, they are the most rapidly expanding brand communication medium, and are expected to deal with up to 90% of healthcare and financial enquiries in the US in 2023.
Given the sheer size and volume of the gaming industry, a chatbot could really ease the pressure on customer support teams, meeting the needs of both the gaming company’s resource challenges and players’ needs for instant access to the developer.
The best customer service comes from a place of knowledge and understanding. For gamers, there is little they do not know about the games they are playing, so when a need to speak with a customer service agent arises, it’s vital the person they are engaging with understands the nuances and intricacies of the inquiry. Providing opportunities for customer agents to play the games, be active in gamer communities and forums, and gain in-depth knowledge is critical to delivering an effective customer experience.
A good customer experience journey doesn’t end when an enquiry is closed. Being on the frontline of customer service means agents gather unfiltered information and insights that can really inform the gaming company’s future plans. But only if that information is shared. Creating a system where feedback from across all aspects of the customer experience can be shared can become an invaluable source of user feedback.
Just like any other sector, gaming must ensure it is meeting the demands and expectations of its customers; with an historically low benchmark when it comes to customer experience, there’s a lot to be done in order to achieve this. By implementing any number of the steps above, a gaming company can certainly make inroads into this journey.
To find out how we can improve your customer experience, please contact our team.
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