A guide to phone banking: How it works
Note: we’re not referring to the world of banking on your phone. This is about en masse communications for campaigning organisations to phone their supporters
Our definition of phone banking is: when staff or volunteers call people en masse to mobilise for their campaign. This could be for a trade union ahead of the ballot, a political party for a campaign like an election, or for a not-for-profit to recruit members or get feedback about activity.
Here at Movement we work closely with all three of these groups. Helping them across all their comms, be it phones, SMS, WhatsApp or email. We also act as a single source of truth for their data, making it automated and accessible.
Here we break down the phone banking process for you.
Contents:
How phone banking works
Why phones banks are vital to campaigns
How Movement makes it simple
1. HOW PHONE BANKING WORKS
Phone banking can range from the manual, so having a physical set of phone lines in a call centre, to the virtual, using software on a computer so that staff or volunteers can share the same number and technically call from anywhere.
Traditionally, the prior format has always been used in campaigns. You can picture the 1950s mayoral candidate with the office full of people on the phones, ashtrays full of cigarette butts. This information would then be put into physical files and written up into a report. Nowadays it’s a bit more dynamic.
Phone banking software like ours enables campaigns to call from a single phone number, via a phone or a device connected to the internet and input the information they get from calls straight into a CRM or database.
This means you don’t need a brick-and-mortar office or call centre to do the phone banking from, in fact you don’t technically need to be in the same country, helping global teams work in sync.
Our data storage and automation helps make all the call information accessible to those who need it. It shows the kind of feedback you get from the people you outreach to, and how those making calls are doing.
2. WHY PHONES BANKS ARE VITAL TO CAMPAIGNS
With the rise of email marketing, SMS and WhatsApp it could be easy to think that traditional methods like calling your electorate are outdated. But phone banking still proves to be one of the most effective methods of actually speaking to those who follow you.
Automated dialling can enable you to call 100s of people an hour. Phone banking allows you to talk directly with 100s of people an hour, which, aside from manually going to someone’s house to canvas them (lengthy and not very cost effective), is as direct as it gets. No inbox to put your emails in spam.
Some people are more likely to mobilise. Someone is more likely to go out to vote if they speak to you in person than receiving an email.
Create a sense of belonging. People, be it an electorate or members of a union appreciate someone calling them and listening to what they have to say. The sense of belonging you can create is a powerful tool.
It does help to have modern phone banking software available in order to get through calls more efficiently, and reach your members. The data that calls using phone banking software provide can be really helpful for future decision making too.
If you’d like to have a chat with us about ours you can do so here.
3. HOW MOVEMENT MAKES IT SIMPLE
Movement is a team made up of trade union, not for profit and political party alumni with decades of experience in helping campaigns win. When we saw how we could improve the process for others we thought we should get to work.
Movement software means you experience seamless campaign management and amplified impact with our phonebank tool. It offers a simple setup, robust GDPR compliant data security, and the capacity for each volunteer to make up to 45 calls per hour.
One of the main things clients say to us is how brilliantly simple Movement is to use, we give volunteers confidence to make calls and speak to people and we give those expert callers an opportunity to really shine and take as many calls as possible.
Movement is designed to work as efficiently as possible, whether you’re calling 500 people or 500,000. Larger campaigns can enjoy smart routing, whereby members or volunteers logging in from a branch, constituency, or city, are only routed to people within their patch. Set up just 1 campaign with unlimited localised phonebanks, reducing your coordination efforts significantly.
Volunteers love Movement because they can call using a laptop, tablet, or just their phone, and still make 45 calls per hour, giving them greater impact than ever before.
