Real-time chat tool provides instant assistance to Sky Bet website visitors 



London, UK – 26 June 2008 – Sky Betting and Gaming, one of the UK’s leading sports betting, poker, casino and bingo companies, has launched a live chat facility on its websites to improve customer experience. Powered by Talisma Chat, customers to the Sky Bet, Sky Poker, Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo websites – www.skybet.com, www.skypoker.com, www.skyvegas.com and www.skybingo.com – can now receive live, 24 hour assistance simply by clicking on the “start a chat” button.  The service has already increased the number of interactions with customers by 20%, despite a 30% reduction in incoming emails.   

Sky Betting and Gaming went live with Talisma Chat on 5th April, Grand National Day, and held 770 live chat sessions with visitors to its sportsbook, skybet.com. Following this successful pilot, Sky Betting and Gaming rolled out the customer interaction technology across all products of its website on 5th May and its 40-strong customer service team can now provide instant responses to customer queries.

Collaboration features allow Sky Betting and Gaming agents to push web pages to customers in a live session, for example the latest results of a football match, or co-browse the product websites to help the customer find exactly what they are looking for, such as the latest odds on Big Brother, details of its televised poker tournaments. Or interactive guides on how to open an account.

According to Peter Nolan, Customer Operations Director of Sky Betting and Gaming: “Delivering a first class customer experience is one of our man objectives. All our products are live and we must be able to help our customers at their exact point of need, which is why online chat is ideal. While we have significantly reduced the number of incoming emails, the ease of use and live nature of Talisma Chat has encouraged our customers to become really proactive about contacting us.  We’re already averaging 300 chat sessions per day just six weeks after going live.”

In addition to assisting front-line staff, Talisma Chat is enabling Sky Betting and Gaming’s management team to continuously review its service levels by providing access to service level dashboards, timers, historical and real-time reports, and chat transcripts, to identify opportunities for improvement and monitor agent performance.

“Talisma Chat was the ideal solution for us, as we needed a scalable system that could expand with our business and allow us to introduce new communication channels such as Voice-over-IP and proactive online assistance.  The on-demand model also meant we could introduce the chat feature quickly, while reducing ongoing costs,” added Peter Nolan.

Following the success of Talisma Chat, Sky Betting and Gaming plans to implement Talisma Knowledgebase – a flexible knowledge management system that presents current and relevant information to customers in a Web self-service mode, and to agents through a flexible portal within the single screen agent interface.  The company will also expand its use of Talisma Chat to include proactive assistance features.

Jon McNerney, VP and General Manager of International Operations, Talisma, said: “Companies like Sky Betting and Gaming are experiencing first hand the impact of introducing new interaction channels to provide an exceptional customer service, such as increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. By introducing a self-learning knowledge management system and developing their use of Chat to allow agents to proactively engage with website visitors, Sky Betting and Gaming can really gain a competitive advantage.”