Paddy Power - My oh my...

[ogpaper]

Well, don't really know what to think about these guys. I wanted to get the latest free bet offers and figured - it should be much faster to just visit them and ask the Live Help for the current offers. What happened was beyond belief:

Santiago: Hi, my name is Santiago. How may I help you?

You: Hello, I was wondering if you have any free bet offers for new customers?

(couple of minutes without an answer)

You: Hello?

Santiago: HI there

Santiago: We do indeed

Santiago: plenty of them

Santiago: enhanced prices for the world cup

You: Is there a page n your website that shows them? I can't find anything.

Santiago: or free bets after placing the first bet with us

Santiago: just google it (bold mine)

Santiago: there is no site where they are all displayed

You: Not even your OWN website?

You: So what would I be googling then?!?

Santiago: not really

You: I need to know the terms and conditions of the bonus offers! You should have them by law.

Santiago: Paddypower pays to other website to advertise its offers

Santiago: *websites

You: You still need to display the terms and conditions of the offers...

You: So you, the customer service representative, don't know anything about bonus offers Paddy Power has?!?

Santiago: yes i do

Santiago: you need to locate an offer on a website and sign up through it

Santiago: the most standard is the matched up to 50

You: Then how about you tell me about the free bet offer for new customers and the terms and conditions of it?

Santiago: The "Matched free bet up to £/€50" free bet offer. This states that you must place a single bet on odds greater than ½ for any amount up to £/€50. You will then receive a free bet to use as you please for the stake amount.

Santiago: they come on the websites

Santiago: you can google Paddypower offers and they'll come up

Santiago: Is there anything else I can help you with?

You: That's your answer - google to find other websites that show what YOU offer?

Santiago: there are 10 different offers on different sites Sir

Santiago: like for instance UKracing.com

Santiago: have a nice eve!

Santiago: has disconnected.

Besides the fact that the guy just "hung up" on me, I don't really see how this level of customer service is possible with a big name bookmaker and a potential new punter. And the lack of knowledge?!? Mind you, when you start the chat session, you can select your "topic" and this was under "Got a free bet question?", can you believe this? The guy told me to "just google it", lol, haven't laughed this hard forever...

On one side I like that they are pushing the affiliate websites, but the price to pay being refusing to help a customer?

Not sure if this is a standard Paddy Power procedure or I just ended up with an idiot on the other side. Anyone having experience with them, do they treat customers like that all the time? I don't have many players under Paddy, so I have no problem cutting my losses, if this is how they operate now...

[Christiaan]

I don't have any experience with Paddy Power. Saying to a customer to Google it is not something they should do.
This was the live chat on the Paddy Power website, correct?

[Scampi]

I stopped promoting Paddy after learning they don't do cross-product rev-share, they also have terrible banners.
Funny little chat though

[ogpaper]

This was the live chat on the Paddy Power website, correct?

Yup

I stopped promoting Paddy after learning they don't do cross-product rev-share

Wow, didn't know that. Sounds like waste of time with those guys...

[JackTenSuited]

Yup



Wow, didn't know that. Sounds like waste of time with those guys...

and single session cookies

[celena]

Paddy Power Promotes websites lol. It's incredible to talk like that, with clients. And does not know his product.

[LukeC]

Well, don't really know what to think about these guys. I wanted to get the latest free bet offers and figured - it should be much faster to just visit them and ask the Live Help for the current offers. What happened was beyond belief:



Besides the fact that the guy just "hung up" on me, I don't really see how this level of customer service is possible with a big name bookmaker and a potential new punter. And the lack of knowledge?!? Mind you, when you start the chat session, you can select your "topic" and this was under "Got a free bet question?", can you believe this? The guy told me to "just google it", lol, haven't laughed this hard forever...

On one side I like that they are pushing the affiliate websites, but the price to pay being refusing to help a customer?

Not sure if this is a standard Paddy Power procedure or I just ended up with an idiot on the other side. Anyone having experience with them, do they treat customers like that all the time? I don't have many players under Paddy, so I have no problem cutting my losses, if this is how they operate now...

Hi,

I think the agent was actually trying to help you as you were asking about free bet offers, and he does not know which offer you are eligible for as this would depend on the traffic source that you have come to our website from. He would be able to answer specific questions about each offer but not let you choose what offer you want based on a conversation with him. I think you would agree that the CS agent not providing incorrect information is the #1 priority. That said, his English is obviously not perfect, but overall, our standard of CS is very high and is run from English speaking countries, mostly out of our head office in Dublin - I think you would find most customers agree.

The free bet is prominent throughout the website for all new customers which shows creative and T&Cs regarding which free bet offer they are eligible for (there is always a banner on the top right corner of any page on the Sportsbook website which is impossible to miss. This is reinforced with text on the registration page). Your question therefore is not one that a normal customer would ask, because the information is easily available for them at all stages - or they would at least clarify which free bet is being advertised to them.




If you log in to your account you will see banners and landing page links for the offer that you as an affiliate are eligible to advertise - and clicking on these displays the T&Cs for each offer.

[TheGooner]

If you log in to your account you will see banners and landing page links for the offer that you as an affiliate are eligible to advertise - and clicking on these displays the T&Cs for each offer.

Which account? Our player account or our affiliate account? Have YOU to tied one to the other?
And where do we see them? On the normal front page?

I ask because when I'm logged in - there is NO offer on that right hand side ... the first thing to display is the betslip / Live now / upcoming box. I asumed that was because I was already a member?


When I am logged into the affiliate site - all I see is one very old style of Bet 50 box ad to choose from.
It's become very hard to verify exactly what we should be promoting at PaddyPower ... it is so disjointed ...

Luke- are you able to confirm what it is we should be promoting?

[LukeC]

Which account? Our player account or our affiliate account? Have YOU to tied one to the other?
And where do we see them? On the normal front page?

I ask because when I'm logged in - there is NO offer on that right hand side ... the first thing to display is the betslip / Live now / upcoming box. I asumed that was because I was already a member?


When I am logged into the affiliate site - all I see is one very old style of Bet 50 box ad to choose from.
It's become very hard to verify exactly what we should be promoting at PaddyPower ... it is so disjointed ...

Luke- are you able to confirm what it is we should be promoting?

Hi TheGooner - your affiliate account. There's never any link between any player account that an affiliate might have and the affiliate account. If you go to Media Gallery - Media Gallery there should be a number of categories available to you showing the offer for each product.

If you can see the Bet 50 box then you should be promoting the Free Bet up to £/€50 (and from looking at your account, I can see that is the case). This is the offer that is run by default with affiliates - though this does not always match our free bet for customers who come to us directly rather than through an affiliate (which is currently Bet £10 Get £20), and is not the same free bet that we run with all affiliates all of the time. When the player is cookied with an AFF_ID, they receive branding that reflects the offer that particular AFF_ID is set to trigger.

You are correct that box does not display because you are already a member - it's removed once a customer logs in. We only want to show customers offers which they are eligible for. It would be a very uncommon user journey for a normal, potential new customer not to have the free bet that they are eligible for made very clear to them upon reaching our site (going through one of your links now, not only do you have the right hand side prompt, but the first frame of the homepage carousel also advertises the £50 free bet). Upon clicking through, the top of the registration form reinforces the free bet available and provides a link to the T&Cs. I would be very surprised if a potential customer came on and asked our live chat "what is your free bet?" and did not provide any reference to where they had come from or what they could see advertised on the site.

If you have any suggestions of how we could make it clearer, please let me know.

[ogpaper]

That said, his English is obviously not perfect, but overall, our standard of CS is very high and is run from English speaking countries, mostly out of our head office in Dublin - I think you would find most customers agree.

Are you kidding me?!? The guy told me to JUST GOOGLE IT... Do you comprehend how low a customer service standard has to be in order to tell a customer to "just google" their question?

The free bet is prominent throughout the website for all new customers which shows creative and T&Cs regarding which free bet offer they are eligible for (there is always a banner on the top right corner of any page on the Sportsbook website which is impossible to miss. This is reinforced with text on the registration page).

I guess you also keep up with the tradition established at Paddy of not knowing anything about what's actually going on with your company. Because contrary to your screenshot, this is what I get when I visit paddy:



yeah, my Flash is working, it's your website that's not displaying properly, too. Had to refresh the page to get your flash to work. As you can see, there are no promotional boxes to the right...

I would be very surprised if a potential customer came on and asked our live chat "what is your free bet?" and did not provide any reference to where they had come from or what they could see advertised on the site.

My question was "Do you have any free bet offers for new customers?", not "what is your free bet?". Seems everyone at Paddy's is having English language problems these days... You believe that this is not a valid question to be asked by a potential customer? Maybe you should actually go to the Paddy's website and click on Live Help. You may be very surprised to find out that one of the options to choose when starting a conversation is "Have a free bet question?"...I assumed this was done so I could be connected to someone that knows about free bets, alas, it was just a cruel joke...

And one BIG problem with this Paddy Power bonus offer "cover-up". Not all of us are comfortable just slapping a banner and hope for the best. Customers are getting smarter and they want to know more about the free bet offer than just "50 free at Paddy" - what are the terms and conditions? Is it a free bet, money back or match bonus? What are the wagering requirements, etc. Right now I don't see how anyone can feel comfortable, when even we, the affiliates, can't get a hold of those secretive T&C of the bonuses...

If you can see the Bet 50 box then you should be promoting the Free Bet up to £/€50

If you have any suggestions of how we could make it clearer, please let me know.

You want to see an even funnier screenshot, since we are posting some? How about this nonsense:



Yeah...Clear as day...

[LukeC]

You are judging our customer support based on one interaction. It is perfectly fair to say you received a poor experience this time being told to Google it , but that doesn't necessarily our overall standard of customer service.

Re: flash - that works fine for me, so I cannot comment. Re: the right hand side box - you may already have certain cookies that disable this (i.e. a login cookie), or be in a country where we don't offer free bets. We show the potential customer information that is relevant to them as an individual, not a catch-all that is shown to all visitors to our site. Why annoy existing or potential customers showing them free bets they are not eligible for?

My question was "Do you have any free bet offers for new customers?"

The agent gave you the correct answer to that - yes, we have free bet offers, but he cannot provide you the detail around these because he does not know what you are eligible for if you make a registration. If you were registered, he could tell you what free bet is set on your account. He also provided you with the correct information about the most common free bet offer and explained that we have different offers advertised on different sites. If you were a normal, potential new customer, you would see this information on our website.

You as an affiliate can get the bonus T&Cs by clicking on one of the links available to you that goes to a landing page. These all show full T&Cs.

That is unacceptable - thanks. I have told my colleague responsible for this to update the banners ASAP.

[ogpaper]

Your website is a mess, your customer service is a mess and your affiliate banners are a mess, yet it's my fault for asking the customer service a simple question anyone at any decent bookie would be more than happy to answer?

Well, you managed to turn what was initially nothing more than a mild annoyance into utter frustration. I guess I did get an answer to my original question, whether it was standard Paddy policy to annoy the hell out of people.

You have too many promotions and don't want to annoy people with them? Well, feel free to head over to Bet365 or Coral and see how they handle that heavy burden. The short answer - there is a link titled "offers" that leads to a page that lists them, along with eligibility. Never heard of customers getting annoyed.

This whole bonus terms thing sounds like a scavenger hunt to me and I don't have time for it. Most bookmakers don't let their janitor fart without sending out a mailer about it, you expect me to waste my time clicking back and forth to find something as simple as T&C of a bonus offer? And even then I still wouldn't be sure what the customer will actually see...Nah, I think I'll pass.

[pinkytoe]

In general, I find customer service reps are a terrible idea to ask about any affiliate related queries.

They are not trained to deal with affiliates. I used to ask live chat reps for some bonus info relating to countries, or what countries were restricted at their casino/book and they would just say "your county is accepted". When pressed, they would indicated they could not give any more information.

ogpaper, you are being a little harsh/dramatic/condescending here. It's clear that Paddy Power's bonuses are not entirely rigid across all countries/deposit methods. Them and Betfair tend to shy away from the "deposit bonus" style promotions and focus more on money back specials and enhanced prices.

PaddyPowerLuke, can you not sort out the session cookie and non payment on cross promoted products. It's an absolute abomination.




Cliffs: Customer service reps - they only know one thing.

[ogpaper]

In general, I find customer service reps are a terrible idea to ask about any affiliate related queries...

Who's asking about affiliate related queries?!? It was a punter-related question, just happened to be asked by an affiliate. I often use live help (where available) to get questions answered - it's faster, since I get an answer to my query right away and often by a personnel trained to assist customers on those matters. EVERY CS should be trained to answer the most basic of all promotion questions, such as "Do you have a welcome free bet for new customers?". New customers don't always come from affiliate websites.

Cliffs: Customer service reps - they only know one thing.

I wish! I honestly wish all CS would "always be closing"! Telling me to google it and then virtually hanging up on me is not really "always be closing". The CS guy had no idea I was an affiliate, to him I was just a new customer asking about welcome offers. He was far from closing that deal...

ogpaper, you are being a little harsh/dramatic/condescending here.

When you spend some more time in this industry you will realize that some players are worth tens of thousands of dollars and something as small as poor customer service could cost you that player. Now, to you it may seem dramatic and harsh to worry about missing on such player, but I take my business and money quite seriously.

[F-L-C]

wow there were some crossed wires in that chat thread, the live chat operator clearly thought you were talking about affiliate sites