Chatbot powers charity fundraising

Chatbot powers charity fundraising

More than 3000 amazing Kiwis hosted Pink Ribbon Breakfast events in 2021 to raise funds for Breast Cancer Foundation NZ (BCFNZ). The charity's Virtual Assistant, powered by FAQ Bot, was there to answer all their questions about hosting and fundraising. The chatbot saved BCFNZ's marketing and fundraising team approx. 250 hours over the ten-week campaign and provided valuable campaign insights.

Working smarter and saving time with automated chat

Breast Cancer Foundation NZ has big goals. The charitable trust is pushing for new frontiers in early detection, treatment and support, to reach their vision of zero deaths from breast cancer.

Big goals require smart ways of working, and with FAQ Bot in their toolkit, BCFNZ can more easily support the thousands of community fundraisers who get involved in their campaigns every year.

“This was SUCH a useful asset, we had hundreds and hundreds of questions and conversations asked via FAQ Bot throughout Pink Ribbon Breakfast season which otherwise would've been asked directly to the team, so we saved so much time.” Elise Simons, Marketing& Fundraising, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ

Easy training and escalation when the chatbot can’t help

Typically, an FAQ Bot can resolve up to 80% of queries directly in chat. This was BCFNZ’s experience – the top 5 questions were asked 831 times during the Pink Ribbon Breakfast campaign period, and easily answered by the BCF Virtual Assistant.

When faced with the 20% - new or more complex questions – there’s a well-defined process for escalation. In Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s case, supporters are given the option to leave their details, so the team can get back to them.

BCF chatbot contact process

And when supporters asked new questions, the team was easily able to add those questions to the chatbot, ready for next time.

“Once the FAQ Bot was live on our site it was great to be able to monitor the conversations and easily change the knowledge base, based on what was being frequently asked and this was a very easy, simple process!” Elise Simons, Marketing & Fundraising, Breast Cancer Foundation NZ

A chatbot for content creators makes it easy to build conversation

A common chatbot complaint is that they are very time consuming to build, requiring advance consideration of every conversational scenario and the design of complex dialog trees. That wasn’t Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s experience with FAQ Bot, though, says BCFNZ’s marketing and fundraising coordinator Elise Simons:

“The interface was super intuitive, we were able to use it with ease”

FAQ Bot focuses on the building blocks of great conversation – questions and answers. This makes it easy for content and customer service specialists – like the team at BCFNZ - to write conversations. No complex flow diagrams or conversation maps in sight. And as it uses a modular approach, questions are answered quickly and easily, and conversation can move in different directions without getting stuck in a conversational dead end. This makes it great for the people asking questions, and great for the people who would otherwise have to answer them.

Building chatbot support into all future campaigns

The chatbot was such a success for the Pink Ribbon Breakfast campaign that BCFNZ have quickly launched two more FAQ Bots to support the Pink Ribbon Walk and their annual street appeal, ready to answer any questions their volunteers, supporters and participants have, and make participating in BCFNZ campaigns as easy as possible.

Says Fundraising & Campaign Manager Nicky Sinclair-Perkins:

“Our chatbot has already saved us so much time answering our supporters’ questions. This means they have the information they need to participate in our activities, at the time they need it – they’re not stuck waiting for us to get through the backlog of enquiries. That’s important – removing the barriers to make it easy for people to get involved. When it comes to fundraising, the less friction in the process, the better. And because we have more time, we can focus on what’s important – working harder and smarter towards zero deaths from breast cancer. We’re building chat support into all our campaigns from now on, the benefit is really clear.”