Challenge: Empowering the charity to deliver significantly improved outcomes with limited funds

The Wales Air Ambulance Charity operates some of the most advanced air ambulances in the UK, saving precious time and lives – all thanks to the people of Wales.

They work continuously to support their mission; which is to deliver lifesaving, advanced medical care to people across Wales, whenever and wherever they need it. Their vision is to improve the lives of patients and their families by being a world leader in advanced, time critical care. The Charity has completed over 43,000 missions and is on standby 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Arvato CRM Solutions was appointed as Wales Air Ambulance Charity’s new digital transformation partner to help them raise funds more effectively and reduce their environmental impact by transforming and future-proofing their systems. Arvato was chosen because of its strong track record in delivering and managing bespoke intelligent automation and transformation across numerous sectors; offering personalised tailored solutions with confidence and care.

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Arvato has approached our transformation as a true partner – working closely with our team to help us identify where we can unlock the largest benefits, as quickly as possible, and training us so that we have the knowledge and power to run these solutions ourselves. Their business strength is to provide technology-based back-office outsourcing solutions with personalised team support every step of the way.

Sue Barnes, Chief Executive, Wales Air Ambulance Charity

Solution: A supported technology-driven approach to transform the Charity’s processes

Arvato designed an end-to-end digital automation solution that would transform the build and the running of the Charity’s back-office, retail and contact channels operations, to deliver increased efficiency. It will also provide training and mentoring to the Charity’s own employees to transfer technical knowledge, removing the need for future third-party support.

For the Charity’s lottery system, the solution combines finance process expertise with ProcessAutomate intelligent automation technology to create digital workers that mimic how human employees would interact with the Charity’s lottery system.

Historically, running the lottery required Wales Air Ambulance Charity employees to manually update and manage two separate systems. Instead, ProcessAutomate automatically inputs and updates players’ data and direct debit systems, and generates sign-up letters and direct debit forms, which it then sends by email. It also actions daily BACS reports and maintains the Charity’s payment records. It deals with cancellations along with running the lottery draw – all without the need for human involvement. This has now freed up Charity employees to focus their time on more valuable and complex work, helping to save more lives.

Future focus areas for the partnership include building an automated dashboard that reports on key operational information in real-time and developing an omnichannel donor experience centre. This will help employees and volunteers more efficiently manage calls and messages from donors. Arvato will also be supporting them to reduce their carbon footprint, through removing inefficient IT hardware and digitising previously manual, paper-based tasks.

Ongoing consultancy will also help to identify where new technologies, including automation and artificial intelligence, can be applied across the Charity’s departments and channels, with personalised support to help the team at every step of the way.

Success: A supportive transformative digital solution that’s helping improve patient lives

The combination of Arvato’s delivery and management of bespoke solutions expertise, together with implementing innovative technology, is generating significant results:

Delivery Time Efficient Savings

• The solution has reduced the time the Charity’s team spend on daily BACS reports by 50% and time spent on adding new members to the lottery draw by up to 92%.
• Dealing with membership cancellations has given half a day a week back to the business allowing employees to focus on more value-added tasks.

Sustainability and Reducing Carbon Footprint

• Sending new member letters via email instead of post, has saved the Charity up to £20,000 annually and is reducing its reliance on paper. Overall the process is enabling them to be more environmentally friendly.
• The automation process is fully auditable, ensuring compliance with all statutory and legal regulations.

Employee satisfaction – Removal of repetitive tasks improves job satisfaction

“Historically, I was required to manually update and manage two separate systems. This was an incredibly time-consuming process that took me away from valuable personal engagement with Charity supporters.

Now with the introduction of automation within the Lottery Process, I can spend more time adding value with our Charity supporters and I have much more job satisfaction as I am doing the parts of my role that I love and have a real passion for”

Mandy Dunell, the Charity’s Lottery Administration Manager