‘If we didn’t have a great product then CRM wouldn’t matter,’ says Betsson head of CRM

According to Sofia Madsen, director of CRM and VIP and Betsson, without Betsson's "truly great product, CRM wouldn't matter."

After all, she says, the company's foundation "will always be a great product."

Speaking during this week's iteration of Betsson’s by-weekly panel show, ‘Betsson Live’, Ms Madsen provided an insight into what her job entails, her views on CRM, and explained how she got into Malta's iGaming industry.

Expanding on her belief that having a strong product is essential, she said that CRM is useful to encourage a certain activity among players, outside of the product.

"This is where CRM really and truly adds value."

In terms of how it adds value, Ms Madsen emphasised the impact of data collection. This, she says, is how companies are able to identify which customers to target, send certain communications to, or offer particular rewards to.

Customisation is a "huge" part of CRM, she said. "Giving the right rewards, and offering the right products to the right customer" is essential.

A "big part" of this is segmentation, as, for example, the company wouldn't want to offer a sportsbook player a casino incentive or vice versa.

Ms Madsen's CRM team works closely with Betsson analytics team to be able to target customers using data models, segmentation and analytics.

Asked what her specific role entails, she answered that she looks at the company's vision and long-term strategy.

Regarding her professional philosophy, she explained she believes in hard work, accountability, taking pride in a product, and seeing projects through to the end.

"As a leader, that's what I try to establish in my team," she added.

Reflecting on how she came to work in Malta at Betsson, she said she was caught up in the poker boom in the mid-naughties.

"I loved to play poker", she says, and Malta was at the time drawing lots of attention as it opened up.

"Back in 2005, I saw an advert in a Swedish newspaper about a great poker company setting up down here, and I ended up going."

While Ms Madsen has since left and returned to the island multiple times, working for a variety of prominent iGaming entities, she is now back, 16 years after she first arrived.

In her time on the island, and aside from her professional career, a particular highlight of hers is having won a poker tournament last year, bringing home a prize pot of €20,000.