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What has been the highlight of 2007 for the company and why?
During July we ran a £1 million ‘Kerchingo’ game, whereby 15,000 online qualifying customers competed to win £1 million from one single bingo game. Online qualifying games were played on galabingo.co.uk during July, with the final being aired on Gala TV (Sky Channel 841) and streamed via galabingo.co.uk. The lucky winner was Pauline Clarke from Bristol.
What has been the worst moment of 2007 for the company and why?
We are always disappointed when we need to schedule essential maintenance on our sites and therefore interrupt customer play. We hope our customers understand the need to conduct such maintenance in order to develop a better product experience.
What steps has Gala Coral taken to ensure that it has a good online reputation?
Our retail heritage and UK roots certainly engender inherent trust, though we are never complacent about this and strive hard to ensure we uphold our reputation.
To us, good online reputation is all about maintaining the integrity of the brands we represent, ensuring we are leaders in best practice for regulatory and customer service matters. We comply fully with the licensing regime of the UK Gambling Commission, one of the highest and most exacting standards in the world, and GamCare accredits all our websites as meeting or exceeding their standards for responsible gambling.
Behind the scenes we have strict ‘Know Your Customer’ rules that are rigorously enforced to ensure that no play is possible by minors, and we have a thorough audit process to meet EU legislation that is in place to prevent money laundering, terrorist funding, proceeds of crime and any other fraud issues. Our credit/debit card payment systems are regularly assessed to ensure we comply fully with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, and we were the first major online gaming company to meet the Verified by Visa and Mastercard SecureCode standards for secure online payments.
Our Customer Service teams are available 24/7 by phone or email, and we have strict performance targets to ensure we are meeting customer expectations. We also carry out regular customer surveys and have made many improvements as a result of these sessions.
What makes Gala Bingo stand out from the rest of the competition?
Heritage, innovation, and marketing. Gala Bingo online is market leader partly due to its brand heritage, its extremely high brand awareness and the fact that Gala is inextricably associated with the game of bingo. In addition we have our own proprietary software that allows our team of developers to constantly develop new games and product enhancements. We also are able to rapidly scale up our player capacity requirements to meet increasing demands. Our significant marketing budget is deployed strategically to ensure that we remain number one from a brand, customer acquisition and customer retention perspective.
How many staff does the company employ and where?
Across our retail operations we have over 18,000 employees with a further 650 in Group roles.
What do you have planned for 2008? What sort of year is it going to be?
2008 will be an exciting year for the Group. Despite challenges from the general economic climate and the continuing changing legal landscape in certain international territories, the business is expected to grow in a number of areas and in particular e-commerce. Growth will be generated through aggressive customer acquisition, targeted CRM/retention techniques and product development and innovation.
Clive Cottrell, head of marketing e-commerce, Gala Coral
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