# Rapport-first call script with more gift options: +29% donation rate

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Other (Lead-gen)
- Elements: Script, Choice framing, Upsell
- Date shared: 2017-11
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/how-nonprofit-increased-donations-by-testing
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/nonprofit-call-center-donation-script/

A rewritten call-center script lifted a nonprofit's donation rate from 14.32% to 18.47%, a 29% relative increase. MECLABS Institute ran the test for a nonprofit research partner that raised donations by phone, and it was published on MarketingExperiments. Three changes shipped together, and the two scripts ran at two different call centers, so this is not a clean randomized split.

## Result

**+29% donation rate**

- Donation rate rose from 14.32% to 18.47%, a 29% relative lift, reported at a 99% level of confidence.
- One-time gifts rose 90%, which suggests the extra cause-related ask did a lot of the work.
- The test covered 19,655 calls, a large sample for a phone channel.
- Three changes shipped together, so the lift belongs to the script as a whole, not to any one line.

## Control

Agents went straight into asking for a donation without first connecting with the caller. The only amount mentioned was $20 a month.

## Variant

Agents asked for the caller's name and thanked them for past giving before the ask. They suggested $20, $40 or more a month, and asked suitable callers for an extra one-time gift tied to a current cause.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Opening with the caller's name and a thank-you likely made the ask feel less abrupt and the caller more open.
- Naming $40 next to $20 removed the implied ceiling of a single suggested amount.
- A one-time gift for a timely issue gave callers who could not commit to more monthly giving another way to say yes.
- The source notes donors skewed older, and a one-off gift may be an easier commitment than a bigger monthly pledge.

## Caveats

The control and new script ran at two separate call centers rather than on randomly assigned calls, so differences between the centers or their agents may account for part of the lift. Three script changes were bundled, and agents were allowed small wording tweaks after a pretest.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we open calls by building rapport, offer a choice of monthly amounts and add a one-time gift ask, then more callers will donate because the ask feels personal and gives them more than one way to give.
- Primary metric: Donation rate per call
- Guardrail: Average gift size
- Guardrail: Call handling time
- Guardrail: Monthly donor retention
- Who should test it: Nonprofits and lead-gen businesses with inbound or outbound phone teams and enough call volume to split calls randomly within one center. It is less useful if you take only a few calls a day, or if agents won't stick to a script.

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Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/nonprofit-call-center-donation-script/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.