Advancement Advizor

Call Center Effectiveness

The Challenge

Operating Performance

However, some leading edge call centers do use best practices that leverage their data and provide answers to questions such as:

• Which calling days and times are most effective? Can we cut back some of our calling times and become more effective?
• What script has worked best on what segment of the constituency population? For example, did the "new president" script work best on young alumni or on reunion classes? Which one(s) did not work well at all?
• How are the various segments performing and should I make some adjustments NOW (tomorrow nights calling) to stop calling some segments, or start calling others based on the data I see?
• Do some of my callers do consistently better than others? Who? Where and what do we see as a performance problem (e.g. no matter what, the student underperforms)?

The challenge with answering these questions is that the data is often in three different systems: the calling system (e.g., Ruffalo Cody or SmartCall, etc.), the core advancement system (e.g., Advance, Banner, Datatel, Millenium, Raisers Edge, etc.), and the student or caller information system (e.g., Banner Student, Datatel, etc.).

The Solution

Successful caller profile

The Result

• Raised more money from their call centers...
• ...with fewer calling hours and at less cost
• Optimized the use of their volunteers' time
• Created a more collaborative and integrated marketing team
• Avoided "over calling" key donors