The ability to retain customers is a key business success factor for the telecommunications market in Russia, particularly since MNP (Mobile Number Portability) has made the transition between providers much easier and has elevated the average market churn rate to one of the highest levels in the world (more than 50% annually).

With every 5th subscriber leaving a provider because of service quality perception, and call centre issues being a key frustration for customers, they play a very crucial role in fulfilling the customer retention challenge.

For Megafon, the second largest telecommunications operator in Russia, call centre volumes meant that being on hold was inevitable for many of its customers – we needed to find a way to help neutralise the negative impact of waiting.

We brought Change one life charitable foundation and MegaFon together to turn each second customers spent waiting to be connected to the call center operator into funds that help orphans, waiting new families, find them.

When the subscribers were put on hold, they were told that every second of their waiting time would become a 1 Ruble donation, that would then be invested in the production of video profiles for children waiting to be adopted and that video profiles dramatically increase the chances of a successful adoption. After the call, the subscriber received an SMS with a link to the project page showing the amount of money that had been donated to the Foundation for a specific child.

At a later date, they received another SMS with the child's video profile, produced with the help of their donated funds. A chance to learn something about the child they had helped.

Waiting to be connected to the mobile operator support service is generally perceived as an unpleasant waste of time, irritating and boring.

So we have decided to convert the waiting time spent by the customer from an inherently negative experience into a positive one. The campaign was targeted to the customers spent waiting to be connected to the call center operator, so this restricted audience received appropriately targeted message. We used voice messages in the moment of call and SMS’ after it to convey the PR message.

The campaign took place at the MegaFon own call center line (April 16-22, 2018), for Moscow subscribers, so the target audience wouldn’t avoid the message. When the subscribers were put on hold, they were told that every second of their waiting time would become a 1 Ruble donation, that this would then be invested in the production of video profiles for children waiting to be adopted and that video profiles dramatically increase the chances of a successful adoption. After the call, the subscriber received an SMS with a link to the project page showing the amount of money that had been donated to the Foundation for a specific child.

At a later date, they received another SMS with the child's video profile, produced with the help of their donated funds.

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The project generated a lot of positive, emotional feedback from clients. The most common responses were around the areas of increased "respect" and "sympathy". According to Megafon data, 28% of customers changed their overall attitude to the brand for the better, in a moment that would normally severely damage brand reputation.

As for the social impact of the campaign, the amount of funds transferred to the Foundation by MegaFon came to over 1.5 million rubles. This money helped to produce more than 591 video child profiles – and as of March 2019, 70 of these children have already found their families, with over 50% of them in the most difficult groups to get adopted (kids over 10, kids with disabilities, siblings).

The campaign was so successful for the brand, that MegaFon has decided to repeat it again on June 1st, The International Day for Protection of Children.