Customer churning is public enemy number one for any business. Even from the inception of the concept of business, customer churning has always been one of the biggest issues that a business had to fend off inorder to flourish. That being said, in today's world, this issue has only gotten bigger. Online businesses face customer churn issues on a big scale, if not addressed immediately, it will deteriorate the business beyond recovery. The mind boggling connectivity that the internet provided has helped completely digitize online businesses! And this exactly is one of the key reasons why customer churn has risen astronomically. Read more to know the reasons!
One such industry that faces customer churn issues the most is “Online Gaming Industry”. To be honest, the Online Gaming industry has been on a steady rise for the past couple of years until the global pandemic hit. Do you think Covid19 slowed the business down? Nope, actually it had the complete opposite effect on the Gaming industry. “In the COVID-19 era, online gaming activities have increased dramatically because of both the new time available to people and their need for social interaction, which gaming provides”, says Mike Sepso, co-founder and CEO of Vindex, an esports infrastructure platform.
Table of contents- What is Customer churn in Gaming?
- Why should you give importance to Player churn?
- How to Calculate Consumer Churn?
- Reasons for Higher Customer Churn
- 9 highly effective churn rate prevention strategies
- What is the best marketing automation software for Gaming?
All the newfound interest from players around the world has resulted in new gaming platforms launched on a daily basis, leading to a tougher competition among its operators. The gaming industry has literally become an open battleground. Now, the players seem to have infinite options to choose from. Thus, customer churn has become a very sensitive issue that needs to be addressed. Nowadays, players drop off from a gaming platform for no apparent reasons.
Want to know why your player churn is high and how to control it? Read this article to completely understand the causes, effects and easy to implement effective solutions.
Let us begin by understanding customer churn in Gaming!
What is Customer churn in Gaming?
Customer churn basically refers to the number or percentage of customers who stop paying for a service or product at a certain point in time. In the gaming industry, customer churn is also called player churn. It is the number or percentage of players that stop engaging with a platform. In simple words, these are the players that stop bringing in revenue for the platform.
Customer attrition is one of the most significant key performance indicators for a business since it may indicate customer engagement and overall brand loyalty, among other company components that we shall discuss more in this article. This statistic may become a significant asset for your gaming business if you can understand and forecast what is driving your players to churn.
Why should you give importance to Player churn?
Letting your customers slip away right in front of your eyes is not a good thing for your business, isn’t it? Some players tend to fall off the wagon even when everything is great. You might think that it is the fault of the players. But bear in mind, “In business, the customers are always right!”. Finding the exact reason why they cut their ties with you will help you get a clear perspective. These metrics are a powerful tool that helps your gaming business to become successful in the long run. Building a trust and maintaining a healthy relationship will help you create a brand.
What more? The cost of retaining a player is very low compared to acquiring a new one!
How to Calculate Consumer Churn?
Obviously, the simplest way to calculate customer churn is to measure the number of customers who stop being a customer at a specific period of time.
Usually customer churn is measured in two ways.
- In terms of customers
- In terms of revenue
Online gaming businesses can calculate their customer churn in any of the above ways and stay updated on their business performance using OptiKPI. You can easily track your churn rate with the help of this software. Its powerful analytical dashboards will deliver statistics in real-time according to your preferred metrics. Calculate your GGR and NGR in real-time without much hassle. Input your data into the software and let the machine do the rest. OptiKPI provides you a platform to create, edit, test, deploy and analyze your very own campaigns in the most simplest steps.
We will explain about OptiKPI (the best marketing automation software for the gaming industry) in upcoming sections.
Reasons for Higher Customer Churn
Usability of your gaming platform: Let's be honest, the most important feature to succeed in your gaming venture is to build a world-class platform (app/ site). Players will find it hard to stay with you if your platform is of substandard quality. So, before launching your platform into the market, make sure it rivals your competitors in terms of technicality.
Poor Customer Service: After a single bad customer service encounter, it is reported that 78% of millennial customers shifted their business elsewhere. Yes, customer service is a sensitive subject. If you fail to handle your players with care, they might take it personally and leave you to join your rivals. Place a system that understands your players' queries and helps them solve it immediately. OptiKPI will help you understand your players in a much better way, data doesn’t lie!
Poor Onboarding Process: In a gaming business, the onboarding process is the epitome of skillful marketing. After a successful player acquisition, first time deposit is guaranteed only when a great onboarding process is in place.
These are the two major key moments in the on boarding process.
- When a new user registers on your gaming platform
- When the user makes his first time deposit
Most of the customer churn is seen between the above two stages. A user may signup but fails to make his first time deposit. In gaming, the first time deposit is very important since it is the major obstacle that blocks a user from becoming a long term player in the respective platform.
OptiKPI has a whole catalogue of automated signup bonuses and personalized messages that follow up users in real-time in the most efficient way. It will help you convert new users into players and help reduce churn rate significantly. Read this article to know more about player conversion.
Irrelevant engagement and spamming: Instead of a one template for all methods, know the preferences of each player and engage them accordingly. When your players find your messages irrelevant they get annoyed and consider it as spam. This will lead to a distrust in the relationship. As time passes he will tend to avoid your platform and this where the customer churn begins to crack wide open.
OptiKPI is an AI boosted software which identifies the needs and preferences of each and every player. Personalized contents based on player behavior and the timing of deployment are heavy hitters when it comes to relevant engagement and OptiKPI is an expert in them. Read this article to know more about player behavior and its impact on relevant engagement.
9 highly effective churn rate prevention strategies
1. Prevent Customer Churn
Prevention is always better than cure! Lookout for ways to prevent your customer churn and fix them before moving on to the next steps. Following are some of the things that one should carefully scout for to anticipate potential churns in gaming platforms:
- Fall in average deposit amount over a period of time.
- Bad customer service experience.
- Decrease in time spent on the platform.
- Lowering engagement in communication (messages delivered but not opened).
- Less participation in referral programs
Always keep an open eye on these patterns to identify a trend. When the trend seems to be going south, shift your attention to it and avert the situation immediately.
Every one of the above patterns can be identified with the help of OptiKPI. It also interferes and resolves them with automated real-time solutions.
2. Reach source and analyze
Sometimes it is best to reach out to the source in order to find out the actual reason. You can try to get the information from your players by simply asking them. Create a platform to collect player feedback and ask them to state the motivation behind their discontinuation. Understanding the churn factors in the first step to diagnose the problem. It will help us create a solid strategy for reducing churning.
With OptiKPI, custom campaigns can be created according to a gaming operator's requirement. A follow-up or feedback email can be sent to all the players who are inactive for more than a month. Such custom actions from OptiKPI provides infinite opportunities for analyzing churn factors.
3. Targeted marketing
Proper identification is crucial for targeted marketing, it will help in continued business success and improved player satisfaction. When the needs of your players and the offers you provide them are not aligned, the whole effort leads to more churning. Hence, understand player behavior before sending out irrelevant messages which get discarded in their spam box.
OptiKPI will help you target your players based on their behaviors. Track the activities of your players in real-time, understand their needs and send out messages then and there. This will help you build a huge trust among your customer base. For more information on Bonuses in real-time: automated and based on player's behaviour check out this article.
4. Build Customer Loyalty
Building a loyal following is the key for longevity in any kind of business. In the gaming industry, the role of customer loyalty cannot be overstated. When a player becomes attached to a gaming platform, he tends to stay with them for a very long time. Such players are the major source of revenue generators for the respective platforms.
OptiKPI is a marketing automation software that is designed for the above purpose. It follows a sustainable approach to building a steady brand for a big loyal customer base. OptiKPI helps you understand players and help them receive the best services that they desire.
5. Improve Customer Service
Customer service, as discussed in the previous section, is a key component to building a successful business. Customer satisfaction is the need of the hour, there are innumerable options for gaming enthusiasts in the open market to choose from. Customer service creates that big difference, it can help you make or break an opportunity with a potential player. A 24/7 customer support that is focused on providing value in their preferred communication channel and language will help you stand out from the rest of your competitors.
6. Engage with Your Players on a Daily Basis
People love when they are treated specially. This is why maintaining constant contact with your player base is critical to building a relationship between your company and them. You should try to integrate your gaming product into their everyday routine. To remain in touch with your players, use your company's website, multi-channel communications like sending out daily/weekly email or newsletters.
OptiKPI has an effective multi-channel communication system integrated into its platform. With a single press of a button, you can send out millions of messages to your players via Emails, SMS and Push notifications. Relevant real-time messaging system is what makes all the difference, OptiKPI is equipped with such a powerful system. To make players feel special, simply build a campaign to send out a personalized birthday greeting with an exclusive bonus to all the players who have birthdays on the day. Once automated, OptiKPI will send out such automated messages to all the players on their birthdays.
To know more about player engagement based on customer segmentation, read this article.
7. Implement Customer Retention Activities
Acquiring new players comes at a high cost, rendering many customer relationships unprofitable in their early phases. Relationships produce large returns only later, when their entire customer lifetime worth exceeds the cost of obtaining their business and keeping them loyal. The key to keeping them loyal is to keep them happy.
Retain your players by:
- Sending out exclusive offers and bonus in real-time
- Loyalty schemes
- Free spins to selected few
- Referral programs
- Customer service in real-time
Players seek for gaming brands that make them feel valued, and by doing so, you can ensure that you are growing brand loyalty while minimising player churn. OptiKPI is loaded with all the tools for improving your player retention. In fact, player retention is one of the major features of this software. Since it is designed for the gaming industry, OptiKPI understands all the in’s and out’s to marketing online gaming products.
8. Educate your players
Educating your players by providing them with a fantastic knowledge base covering topics and components of your gaming products is a terrific method to decrease player churn. It helps you create a bonding with your players, when players tend to stay active on your gaming product they get emotionally connected. Send out weekly newsletters with tips and tricks on how to win more on your games. Create engaging tutorial videos and more.
9. Deploy marketing automation softwares
Marketing automation platforms are software tools that help organisations maximise the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Once the gaming operators input their data into the marketing software, the software handles the rest. Marketing automation software often assists businesses in maximizing their marketing efforts by eliminating manual marketing.
To know more about automation software and customer data platforms, read this article.
What is the best marketing automation software for Gaming?
OptiKPI is a marketing automation software designed specifically for the promotion of online gaming products. OptiKPI's major characteristics are compliance, marketing, and risk management. It helps gaming platforms create a brand in the long run by utilising consumer data. OptiKPI uses a long-term strategy to boost client lifetime value.
By utilising player behaviour, OptiKPI helps send relevant messages to the appropriate customers at the right time. Gaming companies benefit from real-time knowledge and technologies that are readily available in its arsenal. OptiKPI is a versatile and simple-to-integrate program that provides solutions right away.