Betfair Screw Up - Yet again
Thanks to an email from a UKFT reader, I thought I should make a quick post to explain a few things about the new and "improved" (HA HA HA HA) Betfair website.
You may have noticed that their website changed very recently. It looks different, but is actually not much different at all, just a slightly different visual layout. However, for those of us trading sports events, they made one small change which is a pain in the ar5e for shortlisting football matches from ONE page, or coupon as it used to be called before this 'wonderful improvement'.)
They used to have a "Today" coupon which, funnily enough, did what it said. It showed all of today's games on one coupon, sometimes one page, sometimes 3 or 4 pages. Nice for us who work through quickly looking at the odds of the day's games, around 9-10am I would do it usually.
Now though, they changed things and I first noticed when I navigated (or tried to) to the day's football games as follows...
- Log in
- Click Exchange
- Click Football
I clicked TIME there, to try and sort by kick off times, expecting a long list, but only got a list of in play games, and games which are due to kick off within 60 minutes. There is no "Page 2" to go to.
I explained this to the apparent idiot I spoke to at Betfair, and his reply was "It's impossible to display all games as there are too many". I had to bite my lip very hard to avoid being kicked off the chat, but suffice to say, he is talking out of the wrong hole. I enlightened him to a couple of incredibly advanced ideas, namely....
- PAGE NUMBERING - I know, radical concept, and what they ACTUALLY DID FOR YEARS (grrr)
- Facebook Timeline style auto loading content as you scroll down. Now that WOULD be an improvement!
So after showing him the light, and explaining why his comment was utter horse manure, he then said 'its very easy, you just click on games by country or other filters.' At this point I chewed right through my lip and explained firstly that it's also effing easy to leave 5hit that works, WORKING and in place.
Secondly, it's easy to implement some javascript or whatever facebook uses to autoload comment on mouse scroll.
Thirdly, I told him if he had listened to a word I said about how TRADERS use the exchange, he would realise it is anything BUT "easy" to do what he is saying, when doing it fast, daily, for hundreds of games.
Clicking through countries etc is enough of a chore to turn thousands of traders away from their exchange. He didn't seem to give a damn about that, no surprises there, these people never understand this stuff in my experience. Nor can they be bothered to try.
It's the problem with monopolies, like Ebay or Paypal, when something is that big and has that much market dominance, they can effective stick up the middle finger to their users because where else will they go if they are unhappy? Yeah, like me, nowhere. But we can still give them an earful as often as possible, fair deal if you ask me.
He then tried to BS me with "just click on ALL". Which as you will see if you try, still does NOT show all. I tried to check if they understand English, ALL means ALL, not some. No joy there. I then asked if they understand what "Today" means, but clearly they don't.
My final suggestion was to make buttons which do what they say. He told me the Today button does show all todays games but only up to 60 minutes from KO, which as we vertebrates know, is NOT the same as ALL, it's anything but all. Their "ALL" button should say "All within 60 mins", their Today button should say the same (they do the same thing?!).
So, after being told it was "impossible" to list all today's games, I clicked on "Tomorrow" and HOLY COW...... They have achieved the "impossible", because when you do that, you DO SEE ALL games being played tomorrow!
Jesus, talking to these people is like pulling teeth. But I begged him to take my comments and pass them up the chain, and he said he would. With a bit of luck it might reach an amoeba. I am not holding my breath but I have got my fingers crossed for what its worth.
I can not express how much I hate change for the sake of change. I am all up for change when it improves something, or adds new functionality. But change just so stuff changes, looks "fresher", feels like it's in with the latest crowd etcetera, it drives me insane. If you are going to change something, make it BETTER!
Simpler idea still.. If you are going to make a navigation system, making it do what it says on the button is website 101. That's why my website doesn't go to the contact page when you click on home. Duh.
PLEASE COMPLAIN TO BETFAIR YOURSELF IF YOU CAN SPARE 5 MINUTES.
Maybe the 'About Us' link on Betfair should be directed Here. Oh no, that would go against their protocol of making links irrelevant and useless. 😀
Let's hope they sort this soon. Until then, doing your shortlisting the night before seems the best workaround for now, or enjoy clicking their nonsensical buttons.
Failing that, for some people they can probably manage with the 60 minutes to go list (i.e. 'ALL' button :D), but you won't know about a great trade at 8pm if its 2pm when you're trading. 🙁
I guess that's all the groaning you should get from me today! Have a gooden!
I sent Betfair a query about this today and was advised to use the Chrome browser and clear my cookies. I'm surprised I wasn't told to turn my computer off and on again. Of course, their "advice" was utterly useless and did not resolve the issue.
The site has clearly been designed by someone who does not use it, and then approved by people who also do not use it.
The only suggestion I can make as a workaround is to shortlist games the evening before in opened tabs, then save the tab collection, for reopening the next morning.
Thanks Stuart, yes as you say, it's like they don't consider how people use the site. It seems blatantly obvious from their prolific TV advertising campaigns, they are trying to corner the betting market and probably doing a good job of it. They are aiming towards the people who watch the footie in the pub and want to have a dabble, and in my view their ads make it look (to an average idiot) very much like you can't lose, when they explain the cashout method. It would be nice to show that you can use that to cut your losses when LOSING too! But then that wouldn't be "marketing" would it!
Good idea re shortlisting the evening before and keeping the tabs open or saving them. Once you have a market open in a browser tab it stays on that market until after the game, so in my case I will leave the tabs open as my computer is on 24/7 anyway, but for many others it will be a nightmare I am sure. What annoyed me more was being told how "easy" it is to do something, by someone who has probably used the site about 0.1% as much as I have! then the "sorry you're not happy" BS - NOOOOOOOOOOOO, I am not unhappy, I am telling you your website navigation doesn't do what it says on the buttons, its YOUR MISTAKE, not my unhappiness you half wit. 😀
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that Betfair's new layout is utter crap - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
I did leave feedback for Betfair about exactly what I thought of their new site but I think it fell on deaf ears. If it ain't what they want to hear they probably just delete it.
Yes I have felt exactly like that's the case for well over a decade, they could not give less of a 5hit about customers, that's their biggest failing and I have often wished it was their downfall. They deserve to fail for being so bad at customer service. They are a financial institution pretty much for God's sake.
I would have actually had less stress if they were truly deaf. 😀
Betdaq or Smarkets anyone?
Yes very good point. I am a bit of a dinosaur, I don't look for new stuff unless I REALLY feel its a must. I am starting to feel that way now!
This really winds me up too. Maybe they should go by the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"!They could at least give users the option of using the old lay out and the new lay out.
That's exactly right, last time they did a major overhaul, you could continue using the old site for a very long time, which I did, for the very reason you stated there, it wasn't broke! I ain't looking for pretty, fancy schmancy. I just want a frigging "Today" link to show TODAY'S games, too much to ask clearly 😀
Hi tim,nice to hear you are well.
Well as i live overseas i had the same prob. about a month and a half ago.
Tried to speak to them, but they made me think i was an idiot.
anyway i suggest that you mark your own competitions in MY MARKETS, that's what i did,and everytime i look into each individually.
take care and hope you are ok
Yes, I have lost count of how many people have said exactly the same re: "treated like an idiot".