BPL Plasma increases donor return with Workbooks CRM

BPL Plasma’s business model is unusual in that donors are both the suppliers and the customers, receiving financial compensation for donating. However, regular donors—who can donate twice within a seven-day period—often stop returning. The team needed to understand why donors lapse and how to re-engage them.

“We have to find ways to incentivise regular donors to come back and donate again… This is about finding out why they decided to stop and if there is anything we can do to re-engage them.”

— Jesse Coope, Senior Operations Manager, BPL Plasma .

Head office generated static spreadsheet reports of lapsed donors. Lists were updated monthly, didn’t refresh after calls, and could trigger inappropriate outreach (e.g., donors who had already returned might still receive a call). Working from standalone files also created inefficiencies and elevated privacy risk in a heavily regulated environment (FDA in the US and MHRA in the UK).

After piloting another CRM for 90 days, BPL Plasma saw better call organization, but only a cost-neutral ROI and an indirect relationship via a third-party implementer.

They sought a partner who could understand the business, deliver technically, and provide transparent, direct engagement—without extraneous intermediaries.

“Workbooks really laid it out clearly on the table… That transparency engendered that feeling of partnership that was not found in the other platforms.”

— Scott Hoose, Senior Manager of Business Analytics

Workbooks provided a detailed implementation roadmap and collaborated closely to overcome issues.

Costing was transparent and the product was understandable.

The sense of partnership outweighed any concerns of switching CRMs, and success felt within reach.

Post-implementation, the team reports major step forwards.

How Workbooks helped

• Centralized and standardized campaign management to increase donor return rates
  Automated donor tracking (last donation, frequency) integrated with the call team
• Auto-removal from call lists and easier deployment of new campaign logic
• Reduced privacy risk by moving away from standalone files
  Improved call return rates and efficiency

“Where Workbooks has been used for our calls, we’ve had a higher rate of donors returning than we would have expected.”

— Jesse Coope, Senior Operations Manager