The National Lottery: programming help poorly

The usefulness of virtual representatives is dependent on the quality of the underlying FAQ database.

The Site

While players cannot yet enter the main twice-weekly Lotto draw from the UK National Lottery’s website (that is due to change before the end of the year) they can play several “instant win” games online as well as check results and see examples of how National Lottery funds are being spent on “good causes”.

As of this month anyone clicking the ‘help’ feature is greeted by a “virtual representation” (actually a photo cut-out) of Gigi Morley, the televised draw’s presenter. After typing their question into the “Ask Gigi” panel, visitors press “Ask” to receive a reply. This is delivered as a written message in the “Gigi says” panel along with a suitable change of pose or expression from virtual Gigi.

However, simple questions such as “How much money goes to Camelot?” (the lottery’s government-licensed operator) or “How old must I be to buy a ticket?” produce a puzzled frown from virtual Gigi and replies such as “That question’s beaten me. Please ask your question in a different way”. (The answer to the latter, about age restrictions, is on every page of the site.). Instead, she offers loosely related alternative questions that seem more self-serving than customer-serving: “How do I play by Subscription?” or “What grants have been awarded locally?”.

The feature offers questionners no alternative to Gigi and the site states elsewhere that while it welcomes e-mails it cannot guarantee a reply.

The Takeaway

What Gigi tells us at the moment is that The National Lottery has bought some exciting software without investing sufficient attention in the feature behind the smile.

Virtual representatives of the Gigi kind are plain old FAQ features dressed up in a user-friendly interface. As such their usefulness is dependent on the depth and organisation of the underlying FAQ database. In The National Lottery’s case this seems shallow and company- rather than customer-centric.

The promise of virtual rep software is that Gigi and her counterparts get smarter by educating themselves. So, the more questions people ask, the more precisely related the responses become. Sending them out relatively empty-headed or narrowly ‘on message’ increases the risk of a poor pay-out on investment.

First published on 31 July, 2003