Implemented a Call Center in Salesforce and a Sophisticated Algorithm to Match Mentors and Mentees
Client
ABCD: After Breast Cancer Diagnosis provides free, personalized information and one-to-one support for those affected by breast cancer; be it patients, families or friends of breast cancer survivors. The organization’s founder, and the other breast cancer survivors she recruited, believed that the most valuable information and support came from others in similar life circumstances who had similar experiences with the disease. ABCD complements the work of healthcare providers by serving as a reliable, accessible and highly personalized breast cancer support resource for patients and their loved ones.
Challenges
- Accessibility- Needed a cloud solution to give offsite employees access to CRM tools and data; also needed to facilitate multiple real-time users.
- Staff Time – The organization spent a lot of time matching survivors with patients, which was a risk for their ongoing growth.
- Centralized Reporting – The existing software did not allow staff members to record data in an efficient and consistent way, as a result staff had to track a lot if information in Excel or export the information from the current system to Excel for reporting. Pulling all the data together for meaningful reports was a monumental task.
- Data security – Some data generated by ABCD’s programs is medically confidential, as well as personal/sensitive. The organization needed to share information with specific staff while hiding it across the organization.
Solutions
Automatic Mentor Matching – Cloud for Good developed a sophisticated VisualForce page to match mentors (survivors) with patients. The matching algorithm, developed by ABCD, was integrated into the VisualForce page allowing an automated way to match hundreds of individuals (soon thousands) while taking into consideration more than a hundred attributes.
Call Center – Cloud for Good used an AppExchange application to integrate the organization’s VOIP telephone system with Salesforce allowing volunteers easy access to important, but only select, information when they need it the most. When a call comes in, a simple dialog box pops up on the volunteer’s screen which allows them to easily collect information from the callers a well as to code the call for future follow up.
Results
Becoming More Effective and Efficient- Previously, a small staff was used to complete requests for mentor-match support and helpline inquiries. Salesforce customization has permitted ABCD to dramatically scale up service without sacrificing timeliness, sophistication or personalized nature of service. Upon expanding their helpline, ABCD was able to deploy their 400+ national volunteer corps using the integration of InContact. Now their volunteer based call center not only helps those affected by cancer more efficiently, but these same volunteers help screen callers who needed additional help from staff members. Since the program is cloud based, volunteers answer calls from their homes or the location of their choosing, so the cost of physical space was not increased. Also, the helpline program is simple to use so it requires minimal training.
Operating Faster and Smarter- Both the mentor match screen and the integrated call center application allow the organization to automate cumbersome applications and operate more efficiently.
“The customization of Salesforce has been essential to ABCD’s commitment to transforming the breast cancer support experience. Simply put: We are able to match more mentors, answer more helpline calls and better analyze information. The program Cloud for Good developed for us requires very little training. This is essential since we deliver our services through volunteers. As we grow, it also makes onboarding additional staff straightforward,” stated Ginny Finn, Executive Director.
Cost Saving- Since the program is cloud based, volunteers answer calls from their homes or the location of their choice so the organization did not need to invest in a physical call center location.
“We are finally able to have multiple people access the system at the same time, and with it being cloud based, anyone who needs to work from home can. We have also added two employees who work in completely different states,” stated Terimarie Degree, Program Services Manager.
The organization is now able to pull detailed reports to show their effectiveness to board members and donors, something that was cumbersome and sometimes completely nonexistent with the previous program.
A Platform for the Future- Since the completion of the Salesforce implementation in March 2013, ABCD’s service provision has more than doubled mentor matches and is on track to serve at least 5,000 helpline callers by the end of the 2014. The solution developed by Cloud for Good allowed the organization to focus on better serving constituents and not battle technology to complete their mission.
“Since the implementation, ABCD has grown substantially. Thanks to the work done by Cloud for Good, we are easily able to accommodate the influx of volunteers, mentors and mentees,” added Ms. Finn. “Cloud for Good came highly recommended to us by a sister nonprofit and was responsive to the type and depth of our questions. They were intrigued by how we wanted to use Salesforce and even made recommendations during development that have proved to offer a lot more flexibility than we even anticipated. We are very happy with their work. The tools implemented operate much less like a computer and more like a human being with a certain amount of programmed intuitiveness. Those that turn to us do not experience a swift automated, almost anonymous-like, support process; instead we take the time to really listen to their stories and use Salesforce as part of our personalized, prompt response.”
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