Telephone fundraising and loyalty: is it still good to talk?
Back in the day (aka the 90s), Bob Hoskins told us via a series of BT ads that “it’s good to talk”. And he was right.
I would spend many happy hours on the phone to my teenage friends, slouched on the chair in my parents’ dining room, twirling the wire of their rotary phone round my fingers as we chatted and gossiped about the day just passed, or plans for the weekend.
The ringing of the telephone always signalled something exciting – someone's calling, and they might want to talk to me!
The idea of call screening, or the sinking feeling when you answer to an unsolicited sales call - or worse, a scam - wasn’t even a consideration. But over time, I fell out of love with the telephone, and its spontaneous moments of human connection slowly dwindled as we switched to messaging, prearranged calls (if at all) and suspicion of unknown numbers.
"The ringing of the telephone always signalled something exciting – someone's calling, and they might want to talk to me!"
What loyalty data tells us about telephone marketing
Of course, it’s not just me – that's an experience that’s common to millions of us (although I know from chats with my About Loyalty colleagues that it’s not universal).
And of course, charities and their supporters aren’t immune to how we, as a society, view the phone. Earlier this year, we looked at survey responses from over 300,000 supporters of over 50 charities in The Chase Index. By combining these answers with insights about particular recruitment channels and products, we could explore how supporters recruited by telephone, or who have used telephone to give, actually feel about their chosen charities.
Not only this, but we could compare how this varies from supporters who have given through other channels.
And what we found can be summed up in two, slightly contradictory, statements:
Where someone has decided to give to you, and has picked up the phone, their loyalty is higher than someone who donated in a different way....
Except for one particular circumstance – where that decision has been prompted by a telephone call from the charity in the first place.
What we’re seeing is a story about the joy of human connection and understanding that conversation brings; versus the barriers and desire for control that we all feel.
When you consider how those two experiences differ, the picture starts to become clearer.
"It's a story about the joy of human connection and understanding that conversation brings; versus the barriers and desire for control that we all feel."
Here’s what the research says, and some ideas for how you can weave this insight into your own supporter journeys:
The insight: ‘Active’ is not the same as ‘emotionally committed’
On the face of it, telephone as a channel is very successful for recruiting donors. When we dug into the data on recruitment channels across all Chase Index charities, we found that telephone ranked third highest (after Direct Response TV and face-to-face) in terms of the proportion of currently active supporters:
These active supporters are defined as having either made a one-off gift in the last year, or they are currently making a regular donation – the latter being most likely in the case of telephone-recruited supporters.
But when we look at their loyalty – our measure of emotional allegiance with the charity - those supporters recruited by phone sink almost to the bottom of the ranking. Only supporters who've been prompted to give in response to press have lower scores - while DRTV stays at the top of the ranking.
And that loyalty score matters, because it is an indicator of future behaviour – the intention to continue giving, increase giving, or even leave a gift in their will.
It should ring alarm bells that such a high proportion of active donors are ranking so far down this loyalty list. So, what can we do about it?
Warm journeys from the start
The three feelings which drive loyalty are the feelings of commitment, satisfaction and trust. If your supporter experience nurtures these feelings, you will see more loyal supporters and more long-term income.
Particularly for regular givers, that feeling of commitment is vital – commitment to your shared goals, to the work that their gift makes possible, and to the relationship that they hold with you as an organisation.
Your supporters who were recruited by telephone have the potential to form strong, long-term relationships with your charity – but you need to factor this into their journey from the very start. You called them, they didn’t call you. While that spark of commitment must be there, because they said “yes”, there’s probably more need to grow commitment in these supporters than for those supporters who initiated the relationship with you.
Ask yourself:
How can you build commitment through your welcome journey for supporters who have been recruited by telephone?
What stories, media, messages would reaffirm their decision to support you, and open their eyes further to your work in your welcome emails or letters?
Could you ask what it was in your work that made them say “yes”, in response to a phone call that they didn’t expect?
"Your supporters who were recruited by telephone have the potential to form strong, long-term relationships with your charity – but you need to factor this into their journey from the very start."
The insight: a telephone conversation can build understanding in a way that other channels can’t
So, what about those who’ve picked up the phone themselves?
This chart shows the loyalty scores for people who have been prompted to give by a different channel – most often by a DRTV campaign, but also from online, social media, postal mail and others. And it shows that, of all the means by which a supporter might contact you, the ones picking up the phone to donate have the highest loyalty scores of all:
The difference is especially pronounced when we look at two areas of Chase Index surveys:
Supporter commitment, which we measure through three statements*
And one particular satisfaction metric: “{Charity} understands why I donate”
*All 12 core loyalty statements can be found in this report, "The definitive case for supporter loyalty".
Higher commitment is not surprising: a supporter who picks up the phone to call a charity is prompted by an impulse that belongs to them – they’ve already seen enough about your work, goals that’s made them ready to give.
”{Charity} understands why I donate” is consistently one of the lowest scoring statements on our surveys. It’s hard to do – because done best, it involves a two-way dialogue with a supporter - or at least for them to feel that their motivations are reflected back to them in your communications.
This data suggests to us that a telephone conversation can help build a sense that you understand and share their motivations. And this becomes vital for securing their ongoing, long-term support.
Ask yourself:
What are the opportunities to use telephone to better understand your supporters and their motivations?
Are you taking the opportunity to ask – and capture! - donors’ first reasons for giving?
And if you don’t know, could you call them to ask?
In our surveys, we find that people love to talk about why they donate. Which leads us on to...
There’s a chance to make phone calls as satisfying as they are effective
A few years ago, we included questions in The Chase Index surveys that asked how satisfied people were with specific communication channels and types. Almost 50,000 people responded – real donors, talking about the communications they have received from a charity that they support.
And the results were damning. More than half of supporters are unhappy or very unhappy with the phone as a way to communicate. Just 6% are 'very happy' with telephone appeals, and 8% with stewardship calls. The next lowest ranking (only 1`7% say they are 'very happy' with SMS, and 19% with appeals through the post) doesn't even begin to compare.
"More than half of supporters are unhappy or very unhappy with the phone as a way to communicate."
Why the unhappiness?
Well, there’s probably an inherent suspicion that these phone calls will end in an ask for money – or at least, in an interruption of whatever they were doing at the time. We’ve all been there.
So, as fundraisers – and particularly, as champions of better experiences for supporters – it’s time to turn this on its head. How can you turn an ask for money, or a stewardship call, into something more magical - that helps to build those feelings of commitment, satisfaction and trust that lead to loyalty?
Ask yourself:
How could you use the phone to thank, surprise and delight your supporters?
A final thought…
The telephone can be a powerful tool in your toolkit for delivering better supporter experiences – here’s just one fantastic example from Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation. And we’ve worked with many charities who use telephone thankathons to share their love and gratitude with supporters, with tangible impacts on their fundraising. But it must be wielded carefully, and thoughtfully, with consideration of where the control of the relationship lies.
No amount of automated journeys and optimised UX can make up for the feeling that someone understands why this matters to me. The evidence suggests that it is indeed, still good to talk.
