BetFair value the losing bettors.

We are now in possession of the chat transcript they had on August 10th, 2009. BetFair’s weapon of deterrence (“You must be logged in to view Forum posts and replies”) did not deter us from our goal —getting to know the truth about prediction markets, and propagating it on the Internet.

So, here we go. There is one chat item that I found interesting.

Mr Jack     10 Aug 18:23

What do you think to offering customers paying the premium charge a better service to Betfair? You obviously value these customers very highly, and due to the high amount of liquidity and financial reward from the premium charge these customers bring you. Shouldn’t you be taking steps to do everything in your power to keep these customers happy. Few examples

- Have an exclusive number where these customers can call someone direct who can speak in detail about Betfair. Someone trained in explaining and discussing Betfair’s policies with these ‘important customers’. Where the customer can feel like someone is actually listening to what they have to say.

- Having special invites to Betfair sponsored meetings, days out etc. Also being told of Betfair’s future plans and releases before official announcements are made.

These are just a few ideas and something you really should look into before you continually upset the customers most important to the whole workings of Betfair

Mr Jack

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[BETFAIR'S ANSWER:]

It’s an incorrect assumption that premium charge customers are “more important” to us than other customers on the exchange – one could well argue that those most important are the losing customers who keep on feeding the winners.

We actually try to treat all customers very well, but do offer a premium service to our “key accounts”, those large customers who put a significant amount of volume through the site, and regardless of whether they pay a premium charge or not.

We appreciate that the long term [success] of an exchange ecosystem relies on new customers joining the site, and existing customers remaining, and we do everything we can to make that happen, by trying to offer a high level of customer service all around.

BetFair forum Q&A – August 10, 2009