One of the UK's largest privately owned betting companies runs a 24/7 operation across 1,500+ retail shops and every digital channel, handling over 11,000 live chats a week. After an RFP that included Zendesk and Salesforce, Betfred chose Halo — and rebuilt almost every service workflow around it.
Betfred is one of the largest privately owned betting companies in the UK, operating around the clock across more than 1,500 retail shops and its digital channels. The digital customer service team supports roughly 150,000 weekly active users, handling over 11,000 live chats each week alongside email and in-app queries.
It is a high-volume, heavily regulated consumer operation: contact never stops, and every interaction has to be logged, traceable and defensible.
By 2024, Betfred's CRM was no longer fit for the scale it was being asked to carry. Advisors had to switch between several different systems just to handle a single query, with no central view of previous interactions or escalation history. Many escalations were managed outside the platform altogether, which made them harder to track and slowed down compliance responses.
"Our previous CRM system wasn't meeting our requirements… and it was meaning that our advisors were having to use several different systems in order just to resolve a query."
— Julian Wood, Customer Service & Experience Professional, BetfredA lack of automation meant even routine enquiries had to be worked manually, while limited reporting gave the team little visibility into contact drivers or service performance. CSAT scores were beginning to fall.
Following an RFP process that included Zendesk and Salesforce, Betfred chose Halo as its CRM partner in early 2024. The rollout began with the digital and retail customer service teams, bringing live chat, email and app-based enquiries into a single platform with full visibility of each customer's history — the omnichannel model that sits at the centre of Halo.
As more departments have been onboarded into Halo, escalation processes have become significantly more efficient. Advisors can link an escalation directly to the customer record, and when another team resolves it the ticket automatically reopens and routes back — replacing manual Outlook follow-ups and preventing missed contacts.
Halo's AI-powered chatbot, embedded across Betfred's website and mobile app, is fuelled by an integrated knowledge base and can be updated instantly. From a standing start, the virtual agent now resolves a significant share of daily enquiries, deflecting common questions so advisors can concentrate on the cases that need a human.
During spikes in contact volume, the team can quickly identify the cause and make immediate bot or messaging changes — a process that previously took up to 12 hours. Reporting shows why customers are getting in touch and where improvements can be made, and the platform's flexibility lets the team reconfigure workflows, update front-end messaging and adjust business rules in hours rather than release cycles. Workflows are now being standardised across the organisation, with every current procedure improved by Halo's functionality.
"Every current procedure or workflow that we're coming up with to use on Halo has been improved by just the functionality that Halo can offer."
— Joseph Potts, Digital Customer Service Advisor, BetfredHalo has given Betfred the tools and visibility to deliver faster, more consistent service while maintaining agility in a high-volume, regulated environment.
"The support we get from Halo is massively important. It feels personalised, not corporate, and we're driving towards the same goals."
— Julian Wood, Customer Service & Experience Professional, BetfredThe scalable foundation built with Halo is only the beginning. Betfred and Halo continue to collaborate on expanding capabilities and setting new standards for customer service.
Tell us about your channels, your volumes and your compliance obligations, and we'll show you what Halo can do. No commitment, no sales pressure.
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