While omni channels and multi channels are a familiar concept to many people from the world of retail, not everyone is well-versed in the implications of these different approaches for casino gaming.
An omni channel and multi channel approach – whether in retail or gaming – both involve providing a means for the user to engage with a given brand across multiple channels, including both physical and digital. The use of multiple channels alone, however, does not automatically make a multi channel approach an omni channel one.
The key difference between multi channel and omni channel, then, is the manner in which the customer experience is joined up across these channels.
Providing true seamlessness and continuity for gaming enthusiasts
A casino, for instance, may give users the opportunity to gamble in land-based halls, as well as via a desktop site, optimized mobile site and downloadable smartphone or tablet app.
Such a casino can claim to be offering a multi channel experience. However, if these different channels are detached from each other instead of closely connected, it is not also an omni channel experience.
Today, it is the casinos that embrace the full functionality and possibilities of omni channels that are best-aligned with how real-life users tend to play.
A given gaming enthusiast may wish, for instance, to not only be able to use the same credentials they use for a brand’s online casino as they do for the land-based version, but also to retain their progress in the games across multiple channels.
The user’s engagement with an omni channel casino may therefore entail them playing American Roulette in their favorite operator’s brick-and-mortar casino, before heading home and picking up where they left off on the online version of the same casino on their laptop.
This same user might then retire to their bedroom for the night, while tapping away on their smartphone playing the same game – all while retaining the same progress, wins and bonuses.
Why today’s brands must embrace the omni channel opportunity
As the above example hopefully helps make clear, the omni channel concept is applicable to casino brands, sites and individual games alike.
An omni channel experience certainly offers convenience for the gaming enthusiast, who is afforded the ability to immerse themselves in the same game – and broadly the same experience – across desktop, mobile and brick-and-mortar platforms alike.
Most urgently for many of today’s casino brands, however – and even more so in light of the COVID-19 pandemic – consumers’ changing habits show that operators can no longer depend entirely on their brick-and-mortar offering.
Now, then, is the time for such brands to look much more seriously at diversifying into the digital world. After all, it has never been more common for players to effortlessly alternate between land-based and online environments.
It is also true, however, that omni channels offer casino operators much more than simply the opportunity to keep pace with the latest trends in how players behave.
An omni channel approach to casino gaming doesn’t merely benefit players, in the form of conveniences like a single customer account that can be used across all channels, and a seamless experience. That’s because it can also deliver advantages for operators such as reduced administrative overheads, and even data and insights beyond what they could expect from a multi channel approach.
