Proactive Care Calls and the Duty of Care
The central message to the Duty of Care is that customers that gamble excessively must be identified and, if there is need to, helped to reduce their gambling. Since gambling operators have a unique opportunity to identify excessive gamblers at an early stage, this is entirely possible. In addition, operators are able to take preventive measures to limit the gambling of the players that need it. One method that has proven very successful in this area is Proactive Care Calls (PaCC).
Why Proactive Care Calls?
There are many advantages to PaCC. The customer gets to decide for themself if their gambling is excessive and causes harm, and whether they want and need help to limit their gambling. Furthermore, this method gives the gambling operator the opportunity to help customers without having them feel controlled, forced or denied anything. PaCC divide the responsibility to both operator and customer. For the operator, the responsibility is to help the customer make well-founded decisions, to present the customer with their gambling history, and to encourage them to consider any consequences from their gambling. The customer’s responsibility is to decide how much time and money they can afford to spend on gambling.
Finally, it’s important to consider the relational aspect of care and consideration. It has been shown that customers who have been contacted by gambling operators with the intention of talking about responsible gambling are also returning customers.
Identifying customers with signs of excessive gambling behaviour
How much time and money an individual can afford to spend on gambling without suffering negative consequences is individual and varies depending on parameters such as income, living expenses, relationships, work and studies. Because of this, gambling operators should continuously evaluate and discuss the levels used to identify customers that show signs of excessive gambling. Operators should also combine the analysis of a customer’s gambling consumer pattern with results from a self assessment. Ideally, this self assessment takes the customer’s own perception of their gambling into account. That way, individual differences can be considered.
We recommend that you start by reaching out to the customers that have lost the most, or to specific groups (such as youths). Any segmentation will have an impact on what levels should be used to identify risk behaviour (in the case of addressing youths, the levels used should be lower).
Reaching out to and talking to customers
Once there is a list of customers that show signs of excessive gambling behaviour, there is also the opportunity to reach out to them to talk to them directly. Initiating the conversation by exploring whether the customer is OK with the way they are gambling right now is typically a good place to start. Another part to this is to help the customer to see the full picture of their gambling by, for example, presenting them with their gambling history and what the future might look like if they continue gambling in the same way.
Regardless of whether the customer thinks that they should reduce their gambling or not, take the opportunity to ask what they know about the responsible gambling tools that are available as help to keep track of their gambling. In some cases it may be beneficial to add further information and perhaps review any limits the customer might have set previously. If the customer has experiences harms from gambling there may be a need for more extensive counselling, or even providing the customer with additional resources for support and/or treatment.
The Conversational Techniques behind Proactive Care Calls
As a customer it can be surprising to receive a call from a gambling operator that wants to talk about responsible gambling. By applying the right conversational techniques and and approach to the conversation, the experience usually turns out to be of value to the customer. Any questions surrounding how much time and money a person spends on gambling is usually private and something one prefers dealing with on their own. Having the conversation in a respectful manner – on the customer’s own terms – is of great importance.
The conversational techniques and the approach used in PaCC originate from the conversational method Motivational Interviewing (MI). The method was developed to motivate people to change behaviours that have a negative impact on their lives. During the conversation, the MI practitioner evokes and explores the person’s own reasons for making a change, and also their own ideas of how that change could come about. The exploration is non-judgmental and carried out with compassion and respect for the person’s right, ability and responsibility to make their own decisions in how to live their life.
Can anyone use the Proactive Care Calls method?
There is international research that suggests that an open, curious and accepting approach to other human beings is more important than a formal education when it comes to using MI. At Sustainable Interaction, we have first handedly seen customer service agents at various gambling companies successfully use and apply MI techniques. That in itself is proof that MI and the PaCC method works outside of traditional care environments. The PaCC method requires two days of training that consists of both theoretical knowledge and hands on exercises.
Forward you at-risk players or train your own team
We offer two solutions for operators that want to start contacting players that show signs of risky or harmful gambling. Let our team of experienced Care Communicators call your players, or train your own team to carry out the calls – we offer the training and guidance you need.
Henrik Josephson
PhD, psychologist and MI expert,
Sustainable Interaction