Automated Calls
Alumni Giving Case Study
What We Did: We teamed up with San Francisco State University to help clean up their alumni list. Prior to our automated call, duplicate and invalid numbers were removed and wireless numbers were identified. This revealed 5,416 invalid numbers which is an immediate cost saving for the university by not wasting live calling resources to try to contact those records.
Our automated call notified Alumni that a student caller would soon be contacting them.
How We Did It:
| Total Records | 56,804 Going in |
| Bad formatted #'s | 5,416 removed |
| Duplicates | 90 removed |
| Net to be called | 51,388 (90.47%) |
| |
| Contacts Made | |
| Live person answering | 16,408 (43.11%) |
| Answering machoine | 21,650 (56.89%) |
| Total Contacts | 38,058 (74.06%) |
| |
| Message Not Delivered | |
| Busy/no answer | 6,730 (43.11%) |
| Bad numbers* | 6,600 (49.51%) - fax/modem or disconnected |
| Total | 13,330 (25.95%) |
Results:
The client loaded the contacted 38,058 good records back into their calling system. The contact rate among non-donors more than doubled from just below 25% to 60% overnight. The savings realized by NOT calling the newly identified 18,746 bad and suspect numbers is as high as $160,090 while the automated call cost only $3,700! This produced an incredibly low cost-per-dollar raised as well as an overall reduction of costs. This saving allowed the University to use its budget more effectively. They were able to fund more programs, raise more money and spend less.
They found they had valid email addresses for 18,000+ unreached or bad number records. They emailed those alumni and received more than 500 replies with updated contact information!
Bottom Line:
People forget the simplicity and cost savings of a phone call. Using the voice of a student or someone with whom the alumni /donors can relate, along with a short but timely message can make all the difference in your outreach program. As one of our clients likes to say – " it never doesn’t work".
The simple phone call as a reminder, event notice or means to access updated information is a powerful tool that is being overlooked in this age of social media. It is a way to access attention instantly rather than hoping your status update or tweet catches them as they are browsing through. The call catches their unequivocal attention while playing to the live answer or machine. Confluent got SFSU and Auburn’s foot in the door with their alumni members, then the universities solid messaging did the rest. It is encouraging to see the multiple benefits of a simple phone call: better records, lower costs, updated addresses, happy alumni. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Special Note:
We produce lots of reports in all of our programs: Call time, length, date and time, live or machine answer, etc. The report that is most overlooked is one entitled “Bad Numbers”. This client actually used that report to its advantage. They wisely deleted the bad numbers. They realized that if the numbers were bad, no one would answer. So, they did not call them. It saved them time and money and gave them opportunity to talk with folks who had the potential to give.