Focus on salespeople has helped with the transformation at Svenska Spel

Big congratulations to Magnus Lannersund, Head of Vegas at Svenska Spel, who will be the sales leader of the month with Mindit in May!

B2B salespeople need to be able to educate customers

Digitalization and shifts in customer markets are challenging salespeople to become increasingly knowledgeable about products and digital services. Svenska Spel's operations include both digital and physical games, both online and in restaurants, bingo halls and in its own casinos. It is a complex business that also has many laws and regulations to deal with. Thanks to investments in both business development and training of salespeople, Svenska Spel is seeing good results.

– The Corona pandemic has forced us to undergo a transition to digital, and our salespeople are now working alternately with digital and physical meetings or events. It was a bit tentative at first, but it has gone really well. Today it is a combination and it is the purpose of our meetings that increasingly governs the form of meetings. Then it is clear that it is fun to be up and running with trade fairs and physical meetings again.

Must be prepared to help our customers digitize

– The restaurant world is also being digitized and there are major shifts in the area. The restaurateurs themselves may not always be completely up to date in the digital area, but the outside world and their guests are definitely starting to be. The industry is developing rapidly and our salespeople sometimes need to be able to help and educate our business partners and their staff on issues related to digitalization.

B2B salespeople need to take on a more educational role

– For our business partners, we find Train The Trainer effective. By helping our B2B customers train their own staff, we become more efficient and simplify things for those who work with our products. Of course, this makes the salesperson's role more complex and requires even more knowledge of the product and regulations, but also a lot of communication training.

Sellers need to have a good understanding of laws and regulations

– To some extent, our salespeople also become our eyes and ears to ensure that laws and regulations are complied with in the handling of our services. Sales are extra complex due to laws and regulations surrounding gambling. Someone has to keep track of it and be able to communicate it to our business partners, so it naturally falls to our salespeople.

Product development during the pandemic years

– Sales are always dependent on our offering and our ability to deliver. During the pandemic, we have worked a lot with our Vending Machines, Vegas. For example, in 2019 we launched a completely new gaming system with new slot machines, games, ancillary services, payment solutions and, not least, a very strong responsible gaming program. This work continued throughout the pandemic.

Do you have any tips for other managers in a similar role to yours?

• It is important to be clear about where you are going and be able to communicate so that everyone understands why.

• It is important to constantly develop and ask questions about your own business. Competence and ability need to be constantly developed through repetition, inspiration and by looking at what others do.

• Work on trying to develop and change in everyday life, to build our skills and to be persistent when it comes to it.

• Last but not least: measure, reflect and follow up on the results.

Focusing on salespeople has helped in the transition

– In parallel with developing products and offers, we have also invested in our salespeople. We wanted to develop how we process both existing business partners and prospects – both digitally and physically. Together with Mindit, we have created our own Way of Selling in this area. By our salespeople increasingly mixing a digital way of working with the more classic customer meeting, we are seeing positive effects.

Sees good results from training and business development

– We are constantly receiving confirmation that we are on the right track. Not least because we have a large influx of new recreational players. I believe this can be attributed to both the investment in training and creating structure in sales, as well as the development of the work of continuously finding new business partners.

Will continue development work

– Of course, we are not done yet, but continue to develop, not least by broadening our network of restaurants and bingo halls. We are also about to change our sales support system to further facilitate and develop sales work.

About sales and offerings at Svenska Spel

• Both digital and physical sales channels within the three main categories: games of chance, sports betting and casino games.

• B2C sales via a wide range of products on the web as well as via agents and business partners.

• B2B sales through agents and business partners.

• Physical offering via approximately 5,200 retail representatives.

• Approximately 1,500 business partners in restaurants and bingo halls

• Three international casinos

Need to balance gaming experience and security

– We want games to be enjoyable for everyone, so part of our mission is to balance both the gaming experience and ensuring that it is safe and secure to consume our products, regardless of the product or distribution channel. Keeping an eye on gaming is essential, both for the player and for us as a gaming company.

Both digitalization and physical experiences are important

– So a big challenge lies in that balance, but then also in the need to mix and digitize our sales processes. The key probably lies in finding where we should digitize and where we should strengthen the physical customer encounter. That is, we must ensure both our digital and physical service and contact points. We want to create a good and close customer experience for our customers and also for our retailers.