Bookies' customer service

[Joe]

Note to mods: can move this thread to bookies once I've got a few responses (would just light to get some early exposure in General first).

I'm doing some new pages on bookmakers and I'd like to rate their customer service.

I know Bet365 are second to none in this respect. If you've got good or bad (but not libelous ) things to say, stick 'em on the end of this thread...

Cheers

Some bookies to be getting on with...

Bet&Win
Bet365
Betfair
BetInternet
Betshop
Betsson
Betzone
Blue Square
Canbet
Centrebet
Eurobet
Expekt
Gamebookers
Globet
Internet1X2
Intertops
Interwetten
Ladbrokes
Paddy Power
Pinnacle Sports
Scandic
Sportingbet
SportingOdds
SportsInteraction
Stanleybet
Surrey Sports
Tote
UK Betting
Victor Chandler
William Hill

as far as i can remember, i've only had to use customer service on:

bet365
chandler
bluesq
paddypower

bet365 by far the speediest, most helpful etc etc

chandler and bluesq were both fairly trivial inquiries, although bluesq refused to settle a large bet i had with them early, but customer service was prompt enough and polite enough

paddys are very good, always seem to resolve queries in punters favour, or at least that was my experience and from big brother tales it is others too

I think Paddy Power and Bet 365 lead the way - I've had a couple of positive experiences with Paddy Power and Bet 365 went to a lot of trouble to sort out problems with the site loading during an in-running game (even when the site was loading fine for everyone else) and stuck a £5 goodwill bet in my account as I'd missed out on the price I wanted.

I've had a bad experience with Sportingbet not wanting to pay out on a promotion and I know from posts on this and other forums I'm not the only one.

Willhill never offer any incetives for signing up,but i can see why they dont when they know the name williamhill will attract people because everyone knows their highly respected anyway,customer service is the best for me,only the other night i had a £5 bet and won £42 ish back,now the final match in the bet finished at 7.50 pm on saturday night,and i wanted the money to have a bet on the games in brazil @8pm,so i went to the online chat with a customer services person and told them the situation and they settled my bet for me there and then @ 7.51 1 min or so after the last match had finished.Not many have the live chat facility,i cant be botherd ringing them up,too much hassle,and when u email some it takes ages to reply,the live chat makes it great for me ! they also have a fair range of leagues.

[Jezza]

betfair are very bad in this respect - took 3 weeks to answer an email once!!! Have been promised emailed pics of screens which "prove" I was in the wrong (when one of my bets vanished for no reason) but they never materialised despite asking twice.

Jez

thumbs up for bet365
had a few dodgy dealings with betfair but just the other day they gave a gesture of goodwill after wording a response to a question of mine incorrectly!
i don't realistically attempt to use the customer service of any of the other bookies [especially non-UK] as i wouldn't expect a response! i like the online chat idea of willhills mind!

Just another plus for Bet365 IMO. I emailed them about that dodgy email that was on the rounds last year and they credited my account for "inconvenience caused" - nice touch.

Only other bookies I am with now are Pinnacle. Premierbet, Centrebet and have never had cause to call their customer services. Most settle fairly quickly though.

echoing much of whats been said


betfair are very slow to respond, having emailed them a few times with queries, been a week and more for a response

sportingbet, very poor. as jamdog said, refusing to pay out on promotions. once used their livechat facility to speak to a CSA - called Randy - and he was useless. failed to understand my (basic) query and couldnt offer any help

willhill. superb. livechat as tosh said is great. very useful facility, once helped me out within a matter of minutes on a query i had.

only other cust saervices ive used it bet365 and contrary to most found it less than helpful. however, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt cos you guys like 'em

David,

Would confirm the point you made on SportingBet. About 5 or 6 of us opened accounts with them at work last season as we had a syndicate going and wanted to take advantage of their referal offer.

There was a problem with one of the accounts so I used their live chat to "speak" to an assistant. Gave him the basic details and also mentioned that it was a problem with SportingBet UK. He was telling me to go to parts of the screen which didn't exist - I eventually realised he was trying to help me based on the US version of their website and was actually an American in America!

Ended up phoning them but still to a good week to sort out the problem. Not the best customer service.

[keemanan]

yeah hats off to bet365 , never a problem , same too with paddy power who once gave me £25 for nowt! obviously they got it back but thats not the point is it?

Bet365 - excellent
Betfair - very slow - have to call them to get a proper answer
Centrebet - excellent
Gamebookers - poor. Slow and does not answer the questions asked. A problem with some bookies - when they cannot answer your question, they answer another one you did not ask.
Ladbrokes - same as WillHill only not quite as bad.
Paddy Power - excellent
Sportingbet - CRAP. Dont bother with these guys...
UK Betting - OK. Only mailed them once and got pretty quick reply.
William Hill - When you call their call centre you are 100% sure to get some guy on the phone for whom you should think English was a forein language. They often dont know anything about betting or sports and after saying the same thing for 30 mins, you have to ask them to get the manager to call you back. Which he does - the next week! I dont know why they bother with these call centres - they are of abolutely no use!

yup, randy was american too

asked him why i hadnt got a response to my (two ) emails outlining the problem, hence having to resort to talking to him and he said .... and im serious

"well some of our customer service agents are in america like myself and maybe the email hasnt reached us in time. we are a long way from the UK"

i was speechless

Paddy Power second to none. See my thread in “Other Sports” for an example. I had a complaint and it was answered within 2 hours with a very nice letter and explanation. The girls on the betting line always tickled my fancy too!

For cash bookies Stanley’s are very good to deal with. I made a mistake in a coupon in Liverpool that was quite obvious when you read it with the other coupon (It was a 1/1/ X2 or something). They could have paid out as singles on the bet but paid out the full amount (quite a bit it was too) so hats off. Stanleys in Ireland regularly get a staff member as betting shop manager of the year.

Worst? In my limited experience Ladbrokes without a shadow of a doubt. The telephone betting service was particularly poor but the Irish version of their internet site isn’t too hot either.

Good compliment to Bet365 to say in over a year of steady betting that I never had a complaint with them (other than losing cash by the dumper load obviously
:o

[gersguy]

Only had to contact customer services at one bookie and just to be another person jumping on the bandwagon, it was Bet365 and they were first class. 3 times i have emailed them about different matters and each time had a reply within 10-15 minutes. The service was so quick I actually got to thinking they must have people employed there with not enough to do except wait for my email. Hope the bosses there dont start thinking that way.

In my experience:

Hills: Superb service, instant answer on the phone and friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff. They even voided a bet for me when I had backed the wrong selection by mistake. Thought the best I could hope for was them changing the bet to the correct selection but they left that up to me. Said he could see from my record that I was not a chancer. Full marks.

Bet365: Only called them once when I was confused over the terms of a free bet. Not for long. The girl who answered knew the business alright and soon clarified it for me. And who else has senior staff monitoring this board and responding to posts, generally within a couple of hours?

Betfair: A waste of time emailing them. What use is an automated response? If they think that makes the customer think they care about them then they need to think again. The only response I want is from a person. I would only ever phone now and then it is a bit hit and miss. You might get someone who knows the business or you might not. Way to go yet I think.

Ladbrokes: Shockingly poor for such a big outfit. I called one day because I was unable to place a bet online. Suddenly, after years of using it, I could only view markets when logged out. I was told there was nothing wrong with the site and this without reference to any technical personnel. Well if you can't help me troubleshoot this problem I have no choice but to use a competitor" I said. The reply was basically please yourself.

As for the rest of the UK online bookmakers I have never had occasion to use customer service and that must say something for them
.

Only one I can really comment on would be BlueSq and they replied to my 2 emails concerning the same problem very quickly and politely until I had sorted it out.

[slick]

I probably have 9 or 10 online accounts mainly due to promotions etc, the only ones i have had customer service dealings with are ladbrokes, bet365 and Will Hills.

All were ok but i would have to say Bet365 were most professional and quickest with most problems solved within a matter of hrs.

I mainly use Bet365 and Betfair now and so far have had no customer dealings with the latter as most problems are mentioned in their chat forum (which is an excellent idea) so an email is not normally needed.

[Joe]

cheers guys.

Sorry to interrupt this Bet365 lovefest but it took me 3 weeks of badgering them to get myself off their blinking mailing list.

I always find Eurobet to be very helpful. Their "instant message" type helpdesk is good and they usually respond quickly. Betfair's customer service sucks. Unless you're a 2.x% player they don't care.