How about Telemarketing?   More people are answering their phones these days.  Contact rates are up.

But, it takes more than contacts for TM success, especially if TM success is considered to be more than just conversion rates. You know you need to deliver Lifetime Value.

DVCalling, the telemarketing arm of DVCanvass (and sister company to DonorVoice) has a different approach and some suggestions. 

Identity Based TM Scripting

Scripts should be driven by the donors’ connection to the cause, not the caller’s connection nor a one-size-fits-all approach.  Donor decision making is based, in part, on the donor’s Identity, the personal narrative or connection point to the mission (not the brand necessarily).

We call it “purposeful conversation” that gets the donor sharing information about their connection to the cause (Identity) and then tailoring the conversation accordingly.    Importantly, this data gets stored in the TM software and the client’s CRM.

Need Satisfaction Measurement

How much does the supporter experience matter?  In two words:  a lot.  This chart shows Month 1 Retention data for regular givers broken out by their satisfaction with the acquisition experience.

How do you know?  If you don’t measure it, you don’t. As important as measuring is how one does that measuring.

Over 40 years of research shows people have three basic psychological needs and satisfying these promotes optimal qualities of motivation.

We measure Competence, Relatedness and Autonomy with our six, proprietary questions.  We do this as part of a welcome call after a canvassing experience and we also do this for our own TM agents after the conversion call.

We don’t just measure it;  we respond to it…

For example,

• Donors feeling unappreciated and taken for granted (low relatedness) warrant an apology to mitigate the negative interaction but only for those donors whose relatedness needs were thwarted.
• Donors feeling ineffectual (low competence) after a canvassing interaction means these specific donors need enhanced feedback about how their gifts are making a positive difference.

Our callers have variable scripting and training to not only measure Competence, Relatedness and Autonomy (after a canvassing signup or a digital onboard, for example) but to respond accordingly.  In our own conversion calling where this is measured after the fact we send out automated emails to address any failures in  satisfaction.

60 Day Science Based Journeys

Regular giver attrition is highest in the first few months.  The best way to bend this attrition curve is by delivering a differentiated journey making content more relevant and meaningful.   We will audit the existing 60 day journey (complete with copy edits and versioning) to build on the acquisition experience that tailors the conversation to the donor.  Illustrated below is proof of what seems obvious – if we match content to who the supporter is (dog/horse person for an animal welfare charity) – we see more engagement (open rate, CTR) and less, voiced irritation in the form of unsubscribes when we intentionally mismatched content.

Type of Calling Campaigns

• At-risk Calling – These are  pre-emptive save calls using DonorVoice modeling to identify newly acquired sustainers at risk of cancelling in the crucial, first three months. One client cut 90-day attrition in half.  Importantly, the only reason the model works so well is by adding zero-party data to the predictive mix.
• Leads–  DonorVoice works with DVCalling to provide highly qualified digital leads for monthly giving.   The leads are segmented by who the prospects are as people. For example, for an animal welfare client, a dog lead list is drawn up separately from a cat lead list.  Or a lead list of those high in a Globalist Identity for international relief groups or lead lists of Conservationists focused on domestic issues.
• Collecting More than Money.  DVCalling collects zero party data during the ‘sales’ call.  This includes Identity and Commitment and not just for those who say ‘yes’ to the ask but everyone.  This way the client knows something material and important about the folks contacted for the next time the organization solicits them (regardless of channel because the firm passes this data to the client to add to the individual record on their CRM).
• Revamping the Verification Call. If you are back F2F canvassing now is the time to reconsider how you do the ‘welcome’ call, which is too often heavy on quality control and detail verification and light on anything that feels of benefit to the donor.

Kevin

P.S. If you want to schedule time to consider Telemarketing and how to approach it differently then reply “interested” in the comments or email me at kschulman@dvcanvass.com.

P.P.S. Does all this work?  DVCalling went head to head with another TM shop and had 300% higher conversion.