UNICEF: Turning caring people into regular givers with omnichannel customer engagement

7.8%

increase in the number of regular donors

33.3%

decrease in the number of donors that stop giving

4%

conversion rate on donor who abandon registration cart

Challenge

Boost donations for disadvantaged children

Donations are essential to UNICEF’s mission to build a better future for disadvantaged children across the world. But the UN charity was seeing a decrease in donor retention and an increase in the number of first-time donors that don’t become regular givers.

UNICEF needed to act to improve donor engagement, help convert every conversation into a donation, and reduce donor churn. But several factors were making this a challenge:

  • Siloed data and channels — UNICEF used SMS, email, telemarketing, and WhatsApp as its key customer communication channels. But each channel was managed through a different platform, making it difficult to deliver a consistent donor experience.
  • Lack of performance metrics — With each channel being run through a separate platform, it was difficult to know which channel performed better in which situations.
  • An inability to transfer all data into the CRM — UNICEF lacked the tools to consolidate donor insights from multiple sources.

The charity knew it needed to use advanced omnichannel technology to revamp the way it engaged its donor community.

Solution

Omnichannel customer engagement solution to build meaningful connections

This was one of the most exciting and meaningful campaigns Infobip has ever been involved in. We worked with UNICEF to develop a plan that would take donors on a journey of understanding about the challenges children face, and how regular donations could help them. This plan involved:

  • Reaching out to donors on the channels they prefer
  • Engaging them with personalized content
  • Automating communications through simple workflows
  • Optimizing the donor journey
  • Providing always-on support to donors

The good news was UNICEF already had plenty of customer data about donors’ preferred communication channels. Our data platform, People CDP, helped bring all this data into one central location to build segments, create relevant customer journeys, and optimize campaigns.

UNICEF used the following solutions from the Infobip communication platform:

  • Moments: our omnichannel customer engagement hub to help with segmentation, analytics, and event-triggered messaging.
  • Answers: our chatbot-building platform to ensure always-on support.
  • Conversations: our cloud contact center solution for live agents to assist with real-time information to donors who call their toll-free number. Enquiries can also be dealt with on WhatsApp and SMS.
  • A mix of communication channels including: Email, SMS, WhatsApp Business Platform, and Voice from a single platform.
  • Email validation: to ensure contact database was clean and up to date

Infobip provided the best value for money and offered the array of solutions we were looking for, as well as a set of tools to implement as our operations expanded. With Infobip, agile service and support are guaranteed.

Paula Costa

Marketing and Partnerships

With the help of Moments, UNICEF was able to segment its donors based on data, behavior, preferences, analytics, and  journey stage. They could also set up communication flows for each stage of the customer journey. For example:

Our omnichannel capabilities ensured messages were delivered on the donor’s channel of choice, with undelivered communications automatically sent to a ‘failover’ channel. 

For existing donors, the main channel was email, with WhatsApp as a failover — enabling chatbot assistance or the option for donors to speak to agents if they had more complex queries.

For potential donors, there was a carefully planned customer journey with a mix of email, WhatsApp, and SMS communications. There was also a lead-scoring system to help categorize potential donors and inform the next engagement step.

UNICEF was able to manage all these interactions on a single interface, using data insights to segment and personalize campaigns for each donor profile.

Result

Great donor UX, reduced costs, and more donations for disadvantaged children

Infobip couldn’t be more proud to have helped UNICEF improve the UX for donors and nurture them in a more intelligent and effective way — all while cutting the cost of sending messages. The results speak for themselves:

  • 7.8% increase in donors being converted into regular donors — after three months of the campaign.
  • 33.3% decrease in donor churn rate compared with the year before.
  • 4% conversion rate into donors for whose who abandoned their carts

Throughout the implementation process, Infobip were very proactive and always available. Such care in customer service is something that stands out.

Paula Costa

Marketing and Partnerships