3 Benefits of Using Contact Centers to Strengthen NGO Activities
Written by:
Daniela Araújo
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) face a constant challenge to continuously improve their positioning to increase awareness and trust in their organization and the number of volunteers and donations.
Because of this, communications and community engagement are key factors in helping these institutions achieve their objectives, which often involve fundraising and raising awareness for their causes.
Because of the importance of communications and engagement, NGOs need channels for quick and efficient connections with volunteers, donors, and potential stakeholders. This is where contact centers come into play. Contact centers provide various communications channels, including voice, chat, email, and social media, plus the added potential for automated responses through chatbots and voicebots.
A study from the International Institute for Environment and Development found that even though it’s important to be active on social media, it’s more important to ensure effective communication. NGOs must ensure they understand their target audience, are present on channels used by their audience, and continually adapt their communications to engage more people.
Here’s a guide on how NGOs can leverage contact centers to maximize their organizational activities.
1. Optimize Customer Service for Volunteers and Donors
With contact centers, NGOs can establish more frequent contact with volunteers and donors. Contact centers allow for more effective inbound and outbound campaigns supported by data and reports from these platforms.
This data provides a greater understanding of donors and volunteers and more optimized and effective customer service. With an omnichannel view of each customer, including all interactions they’ve had with the organization, NGOs can ensure information isn’t lost between interactions.
Centralizing this data allows new campaigns and service improvements to be defined and implemented, and interactions can be personalized based on insights from previous or ongoing campaign reports.
2. Automated Services
Increasing contact with donors and volunteers is a significant advantage, but the benefits don’t stop there. With a contact center, it’s possible to configure chat and voice automation to allow users to receive faster, more personalized responses. This contributes to reduced costs and improvements in average wait time.
It also allows agents to focus on urgent matters or tasks. If a self-service option is inconclusive, customers can be directed to the correct line, improving average handling time and preventing customer dissatisfaction.
Automation brings several benefits for various situations. By implementing interactive voice response (IVR), voicebots, or chatbots, consumers can receive comprehensive information about fundraising, donation campaigns, volunteer recruitment, partnerships, and NGO causes.
By making information easier to share, NGOs can ensure a broader reach and more donations. Contact centers and automation even have a special relevance during natural disasters and emergencies because they provide quick and effective solutions and relief information.
3. Greater Proximity and Relationship Opportunities
It’s important to cultivate relationships with current volunteers and donors. Unlike other organizations that offer paid services with direct benefits, consumers who volunteer with NGOs or make donations don’t receive tangible benefits in return. Because of this, personalized service is crucial to ensuring consumers feel they are truly making a difference and engaging with a cause that represents them and their values. This feeling is only possible through a solid communication and relationship strategy.
Contact centers can help by sending automatic reminders about upcoming actions, sending updates about topics of interest to specific volunteers or donors, or sending satisfaction or feedback surveys to discover areas of improvement. It’s also possible to customize communications by sending multimedia content to demonstrate how donations are applied. For example, an NGO dedicated to animal protection may send donors an image of the animal they saved.
All these actions are facilitated by contact center platforms, which provide the data and metrics needed to build lasting long-term relationships and carry out efficient, integrated operations.
For more information about the impact of contact centers on the work of NGOs, click here. Want to learn more about the benefits of contact center solutions? GoContact can help. Schedule a demo with us with no cost or commitment.
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