Donor Outreach Program Saves More Lives by Transforming Operations with Convoso

At a glance

Challenges

Dialer not integrated with CRM, excessive voicemails, flagged numbers, low contact rates

Solutions

Integrated dialer, answering machine detection (AMD), caller ID reputation management, dedicated customer success team

Results

2X donor talk time, ~60% increase in appointments set per hour, reduced agent burnout, and eliminated need for multiple software solutions

Helping the team reach more lapsed blood donors

Since 2008, 448 Recruitment has served as a vital bridge between healthcare clients and lapsed donors. 

Its goal is to help maintain the blood supply chain by reconnecting individuals with hospitals and donation centers nationwide.

While the team’s expertise in donor engagement is unmatched, they faced dialer roadblocks that reduced the number of donors agents could talk to each day.

We spoke with Co-Founder and VP of Operations Heath Wilson about why his team switched to Convoso and how it helps them reach more donors efficiently.

Integrated dialer and CRM improve outbound calling efficiency

448 Recruitment relied on a custom-built donor management system, but its previous dialers couldn’t integrate with it.

“There were a lot of manual processes going back and forth between the dialer platform and our CRM,” Wilson says.

That slowed productivity, limited daily outreach, and made onboarding harder because recruiters had to learn multiple disconnected systems.

With Convoso, the team integrated its donor recruitment platform with its dialer, giving recruiters one efficient workflow.

“Without Convoso, we would not have been able to successfully integrate our donor recruitment platform with our dialer platform, which has been a tremendous boost in productivity for us,” Wilson says.

Now, recruiters can view donor information, open the CRM, update details, and see scheduled appointments without jumping between tools.

Answering machine detection increases live conversations

One of the most persistent challenges 448 Recruitment faced was time lost to voicemail. 

Recruiters found themselves listening to voicemail after voicemail instead of engaging in meaningful conversations with potential donors. 

This not only reduced productivity but also took a toll on morale. 

Increasing conversations with accurate detection

Convoso's answering machine detection reduced the number of voicemail connections, allowing agents to spend more time in live conversations.

Before Convoso, Wilson says recruiters could sometimes spend 10 to 12 minutes dialing records without reaching a live donor.

"The answering machine detection was a gigantic win," Wilson says. “Being able to talk to more donors per hour is absolutely a morale boost.”

Wilson also emphasizes the importance of accurate AMD, because poor detection can accidentally disconnect live donors. 

With Convoso, he found the detection reliable enough to support more live conversations without sacrificing donor experience.

"We're able to talk to more donors every hour, and that's absolutely where all the ROI comes from. It trickles down to everything else that we do."

Caller ID reputation management improves contact rates

In today's era of increased skepticism towards unknown callers, 448 Recruitment faced a growing challenge with "Spam Likely" flags. 

Convoso's caller ID reputation management tools allow the team to monitor number performance and proactively reduce flagging.

"It is a huge deal to be able to monitor your telephone numbers for spam flags," Wilson says.

"You cannot represent another company's brand or your own brand and have your phone number come up as potential spam or scam likely. With Convoso, we get flagged a lot less frequently.”

Outbound calling tools that support TCPA compliance

As outreach scaled, maintaining compliance became critical to sustaining performance.

"You've got to make sure you're contacting customers at the right time… to make sure that we've got the right cadences… and that we're not over-contacting."

Convoso provides built in compliance guardrails, including call time restrictions, DNC scrubbing, and list management.

Now Wilson’s team easily manages campaigns to reduce compliance risks and optimize outreach to generate more conversations.

Power dialer improves connection rates without call delays

For Wilson’s team, dialing speed couldn’t come at the expense of donor experience. With past dialers, donors sometimes heard an awkward pause before an agent connected to the call.

Convoso’s power dialer solves that issue.

“You have an excellent, excellent power dialer,” Wilson says. 

“[Not having that pause] was really important to us, because that's a turn off for so many people to have that pause before an agent gets connected.”

The power dialer also gives the team control over dialing pace throughout the day. 

Managers monitor drop rate in real time and adjust dial rate based on recruiter availability to stay below a 3% drop rate.

Dedicated customer success team helps optimize outbound performance

Beyond the dialer itself, Wilson says Convoso’s customer success team helps 448 Recruitment continue improving performance over time. 

In his experience, vendor support is often generic, with teams responding to issues without any knowledge about the customer’s goals, account setup, or performance trends.

Convoso’s approach to customer success is different. 

During regular check-ins, Wilson says the customer success team reviews key account details, including drop rate and other performance indicators, and comes prepared with ideas to help the team improve.

“I really appreciate the fact that you guys are checking in monthly with us,” Wilson says. “You don't get customer service like that a lot.”

2X donor conversations and increased appointments per hour

Convoso's platform improved 448 Recruitment's ability to connect with donors at scale.

"We've more than doubled the number of donors that we're able to talk to on an hourly basis."

Wilson estimates appointments increased from roughly 2.5-2.8 per hour to nearly 4 per hour after switching to Convoso.

This increase in donor engagement improved overall performance, including appointments set per hour and operational efficiency.

"We're essentially able to accomplish more in less time, so we actually need less labor," he adds.

Since switching to Convoso in 2021, Wilson says 448 Recruitment has scheduled “hundreds of thousands” of blood donation appointments through the platform, expanding the organization’s life-saving impact.

Ready to reduce manual work and reach more contacts per hour? 

Book a demo to see how Convoso streamlines performance at scale.