We specialise in DRTV and infomercial response and have done a short informal study into what charities want from a DRTV response company to see if it was different from other sectors. To summarise, this is what we found and I would appreciate other people's thoughts. If you wanted to contact me, you can do so on romalley@call-centre.co.uk
(1) The ability to upscale very quickly. This was important with companies who increased their DRTV during emergency appeals.
(2) Per Minute Billing. A service which charges on either a cost-per-call or a cost-per-minute basis meaning that there are no fixed costs even during low-volume times.
(3) Low Costs. Many charities have moved away from live call centre agents but have found that the percentage of calls donating was much lower as older people who were the most generous donors were reluctant to use automated or web-based services.
(4) Professional Service. Whilst cost was an issue, charities would not want their brand diminished by a poor service.
(5) To be able to provide solutions and not just resources. Charities tend to run with fewer full-time staff than commercial businesses and the times when the outsourced call centre service was needed the most was the time when resources internally were the most stretched.
(6) Social responsibility. Charities only want to work with suppliers who had similar ethics to themselves.
(7) Data Security. Charities were not looking for home-workers as they wanted to be able to control sensitive data and wanted any outsource providers to have strict measures in place.
I'd really welcome anyone else's thoughts on this matter.
Rob O'Malley
www.call-centre.co.uk
