Sportradar awarded at EGR B2B Awards

The company was named Best Customer Service at this year’s edition of EGR B2B Awards.

UK.- Sportradar’s Customer Care unit has come a long way since its formation in 2010 – a journey that was recognised this week with the award for ‘Best Customer Service’ at the 2018 EGR B2B Awards held in London. The criteria included an ability to understand customer needs, reliability of service, flexibility, delivery of brief and commercial success.

The company took home two awards on the night, also being announced as the winners for Live Streaming Supplier. What began as Customer Support in Sportradar’s Gera office eight years ago is now an all-encompassing Customer Care Centre with six global hubs and an ISO 9001:2015 certification earlier this year. The department’s Director of Sportradar, Daniel Rossmann, discussed the company’s journey so far:

Sportradar (SR): Daniel, how did Customer Care begin at Sportradar?

Daniel Rossmann (DR): Customer Care at Sportradar commenced well before the unit’s formation in 2010. It actually started with our very first client. The name Sportradar may not have even existed back then, but as our first products and services started to become best sellers we needed to ensure we had the customer support to back this up.

Initially, client enquiries were handled individually by those within the operating units.  Over the years, however, the number of client requests increased as our business success grew, so more dedication was needed. It was at this point that an official support representative was made available to customers as we started to work on a global 24-7 customer support program. Since then, we have established the appropriate structures and necessary teams to offer a truly responsive service.

SR: How does the unit operate day to day?

DR: We have a number of different support teams that are focused on the life-cycle of a customer relationship. It starts with consultation during the initial sign-on phases before our set-up and integration teams take over to ensure clients have everything swiftly installed and tailored based on their needs and deadlines.

At the same time, we also run training sessions so that each client can use the services in full right from the beginning of our cooperation. Then, as soon as both parties are ready, there is a handover to our regular ongoing customer support. This process means that we continually provide customers with information, communication channels and best practice procedures on a day-to-day basis. We’re on call to serve them on a 24-7 basis for all their needs.

It’s so much more than just customer support. Our aim is to create a unique customer experience. We are a tech-driven company, which means we have to place a higher priority on live chats, on-site visits, email communication and the more technical details. For availability, quality and responsiveness we aim to be outstanding. In 2017, we were able to ensure an average first-response time of nine seconds for live chats. The number might look quite competitive to the market, but this is not as important to us. What is of upmost importance to us is that our clients are happy.

SR: What have been some of the proudest moments during your time in charge?

DR: Clearly the big milestone for us was when Customer Care passed its first ISO certification in 2014. It demonstrated that we had successfully implemented a quality management system for customer support, which had been audited by an external body and included feedback from customers. To be recognised with this internationally respected certification, be able to maintain those standards and have it renewed twice already demonstrates a great team effort which I am truly proud of.

The feedback we receive after each customer service ticket request is closed is critical for us. We also offer client surveys. Regardless of whether the results are good or bad, we learn from it and use the feedback to make further improvements.

SR: How do you go about getting more nominations?

DR: While we are very humbled by any recognition of our quality of customer service, our first goal is not to get more award nominations, but again to ensure our clients are happy and stay happy. This is the motivation behind all of our actions, it is our main objective.

Our commitment to this is translated into key performance indicators for each function within our Customer Care Centre.  Last year we received approximately 50,000 e-mails, 100,000 live chats and 1,500 calls to our support hotline. This volume would mean nothing if we didn’t process it and pull key learnings from it.

To do this each of our Operators are rated based on knowledge, quality and responsiveness. We talk to them each day, offering ongoing one-on-one coaching and silent monitoring. We also review the conversations and customer service tickets according to our guidelines, which we adjust to industry standards.

Once again, we try to get customer feedback all the time. It is our most critical gauge for how we operate. We have regular meetings, speak with client representatives at a range of industry conferences year-round and of course ask our sales representatives to forward us any feedback. So, in a nutshell, we try to create a constant cycle of cooperation and support so we have ways to constantly analyse and adapt our ways of working. So we will see if all these efforts lead to more nominations, but at the moment we are just looking forward to the way ahead and taking pride in the fact that we were recognised with the Best Customer Service award at the EGR B2B Awards.