Truly nurturing relationships with established partners is what allows Thunderkick to deliver an exceptional service and stand head and shoulders above the increasing amount of competition, suggested the provider’s CCO Svante Sahlström.
As the iGaming space continues to become ever more saturated, a firm focus was repeatedly stressed about the need to not only gain additional customers, but also really care for those that the supplier already has.
In a detailed conversation during the intense aftermath of the year’s opening event, Sahlström first touches on the company’s overarching strategy for the year, before touching on what the delivery of a best service comprises, the importance of nurturing alliances and ambitions for the year.
“I’ve been at Thunderkick for over a year now. I’ve been traveling around with all the account management and sales teams to hear the feedback that our customers have about Thunderkick,” he begins.
“This was primarily to just how well perceived we ourselves and our relationships are, and also to understand how Thunderkick has been working as a company when it comes to the commercial side.”
Building on approximately 15 years of experience, Sahlström points to a very familiar conundrum that is tackled on a daily basis across the industry. How do you truly differentiate?
“WE WILL BE A TRUE PARTNER FOR OUR CUSTOMERS”
He remarks: “If you go to LeoVegas, Betsson or bet365, you will find all the same suppliers, you will find all the same games.
“They package it with the relevant background and with the great sportsbook, but what can we do as an independent supplier?
“Everybody has our games, but we need to provide the best service. If we don’t have a super, super hit, which we always aim to have, we still need to provide the best service.
“That is what I’m trying to create. We will be a true partner for our customers, for our operators. I want to build this strong and collaborative relationship.”
Sahlström insists that the foundation of achieving such a goal will be firmly built upon being fully independent, as well as boasting a 100 strong employee base.
Citing this as a trait that marks Thunderkick as being unique within the space, he stresses that this is the epitome of a win-win situation for all parties. However, Sahlström insists that this is a concept that is often misunderstood.
“It means that they have to make money,” he explains. “We have to make money. We have to charge them enough to actually be able to build new stuff and some cool stuff that’s never been seen before.
“But we can’t charge them too much because then they can’t market to us because they have thousands of other operators to compete with. You need to find that magical price for the product that makes them push it and make us some money so we can hire some good people, and also invest and create some really good games and great content.”
“WE TRY TO PROVIDE THE BEST SERVICE IN ALL SENSES”
Simply stating that the best service must be provided is one thing, but defining and achieving this is another thing entirely. In addition to having to maintain a work ethic of being smarter and more efficient, as well as correctly prioritising tasks, this, he says, also centres around hiring the right people for the job.
However, in addition to having to build out a high performing team with a passion for the product, the importance of having local expertise of target jurisdictions is also acknowledged.
This is particularly true for those whose interests are spread across geographies, with Thunderkick boasting recent commercial alliances spreading across Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy.
“We’re focusing mostly on Europe and Canada, hence we have a native LatAm account manager as well as an Italian one and so on,” he adds. “We try to provide the best service in all senses. It’s not just that ‘hey, we are the ones that have really, really great in the games’.
“We try to have a wide area of competence for an account manager with business sense to create long lasting relationships, and something that will also grow their business as well as ours in the long run.
“We can’t just go around and ask how high we should go. Do you really need that? What do you need that for? And for the next step, how will you use this?
“We try to keep a long lasting relationship, and we can do that because we are independent and can do what is best for us. We don’t have to consider another platform, another product, another overseas board that has some other goals.”
“…IT TAKES YEARS TO WIN A CUSTOMER BUT ONLY A FEW SECONDS TO LOSE”
In an ecosystem that is awash with wave after wave of news stories relating to fresh commercial agreements and new market entries, Thunderkick is keen to stress that they will ultimately reap the riches of such an outlook.
“There is this classic sales slogan that it takes years to win a customer but only a few seconds to lose,” he explains.
I think that sometimes you have to shout it out on LinkedIn and other media that we’re live in Hungary or Canada and so on. However, If you compare this to existing business, then this is by far the bigger percentage. We’re not going wider, we’re going deeper, and that again also ties to better service.”
Taking a moment to look at things from a geographical perspective, Sahlström asserts that an Ontario entry is not a precursor to similar steps being made within Canada’s southern neighbour. The US, he says, is simply too expensive at the current time.
Subsequently, this will see a European focus be maintained by the organisation, with the continent “much closer to our hearts” and enabling client visits to be made much simpler.
“We want to truly meet our customers, and not just at a show a maximum of once per year,” he states. “We want to go to their office and see how they work, have a proper quarterly report, sit down with them for two hours and have lunch, et cetera, to really get to understand their needs and what we can do for them.
“When you do that there are other problems and requests that come to the fore. They may like a game that ties into their core business, for example. Doing this enables you to hear all that other valuable coffee shop talk that could help our business as well.”
“I THINK THAT THIS WILL BE OUR BIGGEST HIT OF THE YEAR”
As the conversation inevitably drew to a close, attention turned to what the future could have in store for the business. Upon being pressed on what could lie in store for Thunderkick during the year that lies ahead, Sahlström looked at things from a marketing and product roadmap point of view.
“We hired a new member of the marketing team and so now we are offering our partners custom and exclusive marketing material for our games,” he concludes. “We hope that later this year we will be able to provide content that is custom made.
“We will also release a really strong sequel in Pink Elephants 3. Everybody wants to sign up for that as an exclusive game and we are looking forward to that. I think that this will be our biggest hit of the year.”
