How Waytobill and Missing People Convert Autogiro Donors via Telesales

Missing People Sweden is a non-profit organisation behind search notices and operations for missing people in Sweden. Founded in 2012, the organisation helps the police and families of missing individuals by providing a manned-at-all-times telephone number that handles the first contact when a person is reported missing. Their slogan “Ingen ska försvinna utan att hittas” translates to “No one should disappear without being found” and precisely highlights their mission. 

Missing People: behind the project

Every year, nearly 26,000 people are reported missing to the Swedish police, although not all disappearances lead to search operations. 

Missing People has around 350 trained volunteers and close to 80,000 civil volunteers nationwide assisting in search operations. The charity’s mission is to start search operations within six hours of receiving the call, regardless of the location in the country. Additionally, Missing People counts on an impressive Facebook audience with more than 700,000 followers who help to disseminate information about disappearances and upcoming searches. 

Missing People is audited by the Swedish Collection Control (Svensk Insamlingskontroll) and doesn’t receive any grants from the state. Charitable donations enable the organisation to continue searching for missing persons and conduct search operations in a safe and efficient manner. The charity doesn’t call off searches even if a missing person is deemed deceased, as their mission is to bring closure to every case. 

Converting one-time supporters to monthly donors

As a non-profit organisation, Missing People owes its ongoing activities to individual donors. One-off gifts are extremely important and allow the NGO to expand their resources and training, however, it’s the regular donations that bring ease of mind and make it possible to continue with the project. 

For this particular reason, Missing People opted for a telemarketing campaign with two final goals. Firstly, they wanted to convert previous one-time donors to new monthly donors. Secondly, they looked to increase the donation amount of existing donors. Both goals were achieved with the help of Waytobill’s telesales checkout.

Missing People’s telemarketing campaign

Missing People had previously tested the telemarketing approach but this was the first time they opted for Waytobill’s solution. 

“The challenge was to keep the donor engaged throughout the phone call - from taking the call and agreeing to become a monthly donor to finishing the checkout and setting up an autogiro (direct debit) mandate” - explains Alexandra Elgue, Project Manager at Missing People Sweden, adding that losing the prospect in the process of the call was their biggest fear. “Our goal was to gain new monthly donors in a smooth way with fewer clicks than usual and reach out to previous donors to convert them into monthly supporters”. 

Missing People collaborates with an external telemarketing agency specialising in fundraising. Their aim is to help non-profit organisations increase their fundraising through telemarketing. The agency uses AlphaOne as its preferred telesales system, which Waytobill is integrated with. This provided a smooth connection between the two systems and ensured top compliance. 

When an agent speaks to a potential donor who agrees to become a charity supporter, the agent uses their telesales system to send a text message directly to the prospect’s mobile phone. The SMS comes with a link that redirects the soon-to-be donor to an online Waytobill checkout prefilled with their personal details. The individual securely logs in to their online banking, selects their account, and confirms and signs the donation using BankID.

Waytobill’s telesales checkout 

The rollout of the telesales checkout took very little time as Missing People had previously tested Waytobill’s QR and their telemarketing agency was already integrated with AlphaOne. 

“We gained new monthly donors and it was fun to try out a new solution instead of directing donors to sign up on the website. It’s also great that as part of the checkout process, donors sign in to their bank account and choose the bank account number; this minimises the risk of entering wrong bank information, " Alexandra.

Digital Autogiro is a digitalised way of creating new direct debit mandates in Sweden that allows merchants to increase conversion and retention rates and it has proven to be highly effective in telesales. Autogiro mandates are sent directly to the prospect’s phone via text from telesales systems for signing, without the need for long paper forms. 

Waytobill’s merchants report conversion rates ranging up to 79% and retention rates as high as 93% when using Waytobill’s checkout solutions. 

Smooth telesales checkout for charities

If you would like to learn more about Digital Autogiro or our telesales checkout, make sure to contact us! We’re happy to provide you with all the information you need.