If you want to run your Bookie business properly, you certainly need to know how to deal with your new or current clients. This 
article of our “Freelancing Guide to Becoming a Bookie” series is focused on helping you to know how to establish a good relationship with your clientele.
We invite you to read our previous releases:
Launching your Bookie Operation: Your First Clients
Getting your first customers should not be complicated; in fact, you probably already know them! That’s right; your first set of clients is likely to come out of your circle or friends or family.
These are people that know you well and believe in what you are doing, so it is reasonable to believe that they will enjoy having you as their Bookie instead of placing their wagers with a regular post up sportsbook.
Even those around you whom don’t place bets might want to take a chance and get some wagering action with you just to help you to get started.
Here are the links to an article that can come quite handy when it comes to getting ready to start getting clients:
Pay per Head Bookie Tips: How to Get to Know Your Clients
Places to Find Clients
A good place to start looking for clients outside of your personal circle are sports bars. Chances are that many of the people that visit these places are also fond of placing wagers.
When you try to get clients this way, you need to introduce yourself in a casual way. Don’t let everybody know immediately what the purpose of your visit is.
Instead, try to get close to some of the visitors and engage in small talk in order to verify if the person that you are talking to actually wagers.
If you get a positive answer, then you can provide that person with your contact information so he or she can contact you whenever they want to.
It is also a great idea to create some personal cards with your phone and email address in order to appear more professional to prospective clients.
Another great place to get customers is colleges. Just like with bars, don’t let everybody at a given college know that you are a Bookie.
Partners
You want to be as discreet as possible, so it is a good idea if you work with a partner that is a student at a college or an employee at a given sports bar.
When one of these individuals sends a client your way, you can pay that person a commission, and that will encourage him or her to continue to get you new customers.
A Fun Activity
If you want to convince people to become part of your bookmaking portfolio, a great strategy is to promote betting as a fun activity.
Sports are certainly fun to watch, and when you bet on a given game, the excitement of winning increases. When you let others know that they can make their games even more enjoyable, chances are that some people are going to give wagering a try just for the experience of it. Although not all of them are going to continue to gamble with you, some will indeed do.
Keeping your Clients Happy
Making your customers satisfied at all times should be your number one priority because, after all, without clients, you really wouldn’t have a Bookie business.
Not all clients are the same; some are nice and others aren’t, but that is a fact related to every industry out there. If you are just getting started with your sports betting operation, you need to treat everybody the same and satisfy people’s needs as much as possible.
When you have to deal with a client that is not very nice or polite, try to offer a professional service and always let that person know that you are more than willing to improve his or her wagering experience according to your possibilities.
Listen to your Customers
If you really want to provide a Bookie service that is going to be fulfilling, then it is important that you always pay attention to what your customers have to say.
Maybe there are some flaws related to your sports betting business that you hadn’t noticed before, and listening to your clients can allow you to fix those little things that definitely matter.
Local and Online Customers
The good things about using Pay per Head Solutions is that you can get both local and online clients and although there are certain rules that apply to the two kinds concerning clients attention, there are some aspects that are unique to each one of them.
Local
Your local clients are those that you know in person and that feel that they have a bond with you. They certainly prefer to wager with someone they know personally than to give their cash to a post up sportsbook because they know that you are a Bookie with a good reputation on your community.
Online
These types of customers are the ones that you have signed up to your Bookie business throughout your Price per Head Services website or via social media.
Since you don’t know such people in person, it is in your best interest to always ask first-time online clients for a deposit before they can start placing wagers with you.
In fact, we recommend you to ask first-time internet customers for deposits at least during the first month of Bookie Services in order to establish a degree of mutual trust.
Credit
Once you have verified that a local or online client is trustful, you can then start offering credit. This is a good way to work because even though someone might not have cash when a given game that he or she wants to bet on is on the board, they will indeed have such cash at a later time.
If you extend credit to that type of clients, chances are that your business will prosper even faster because you are not refusing any action.
Instead, you are allowing your customers to enjoy their wagering experience even more, which means that they will be more than happy to pay you when they have to because they know that you will extend them some credit again in the future when they need it the most.
Create Boundaries
Sure, you might be close friends with some of your clients; people that you grew up with for example. That type of client-Bookie relationship is more than fine, but a main rule to run your business properly should be to create boundaries in general.
This means that you must be “friendly” but you also need to remain professional at all times. This is because you might run into some clients that would like to take advantage of your good spirits in order to get “special deals” that are not necessarily favorable to your Bookie business.
Promos
A great way to bring more excitement to your Bookie operation and to retain current clients or attract new ones is to create promotions and give out bonuses.
This is an aspect of your sports betting operation that you need to handle client by client. This means that you can offer promos based on individual wagering activity or personality.
Concerning new clients, when you’re talking to someone that might want to become part of your wagering portfolio, you can ask that person some information about him or herself in order to create a promotion that is going to sound attractive to him or her. Alternatively you can work a general promotion that is applicable to all new customers.
In order to avoid getting on the bad side of your clients because they believe that you are treating other customers better, it is a good idea to offer the same promo or bonus to the clients that know each other. This will certainly prevent some conflicts and will keep everybody satisfied.
The VIP Treatment
Very Important Person: That should actually describe each and every one of your customers, but the truth is that some clients are more demanding than others and there are different reasons for that.
In your case, people that spend a lot of money wagering are likely to become the VIP’s of your Bookie portfolio. These individuals usually want to be treated differently than others and be pampered.
It is actually in your best interest to provide such people the kind of service that they demand from you because chances are that they are providing you with the bulk of your profits, and losing even one of such customers can really be harmful to your pocket.
Keep in Touch
Keeping in touch with your clients lets them know that you really care about them. Of course you need to be careful not to contact your clients too often because they might think that you are actually annoying instead of helpful.
Try to give each one of your customers a call or send them an email from time to time. Don’t do it only when you have a promotion running, instead, get in touch to ask them how they feel about your Bookie business.
When you do this, you can figure out if your clients are happy or if there is something that is bothering them.
A good example of why it is good to keep in touch with clients is that maybe some of them have not been placing wagers lately, and there might be the case that you can actually do something to change that and get them back on your active clients list.
Make Yourself Available
When you actually contact your clients, let them know that they can always count on you to help them out. Of course there might be times when you really don’t want or can’t be bothered with phone calls, so you can, for example, set up a special schedule in which your clients can call you as much as they want to.
You can also let your customers know that even though you can’t always be contacted by phone, they can indeed send you an email at any time, and you need to commit yourself to get back at your clients ASAP so they’ll know that sending you an email is quite an effective method to get your attention.
