Digital transformation at the British Association of Social Workers

Consisting of over 20,000 members, the British Association of Social Workers "BASW" is the UK's largest professional association of registered social workers. As the independent voice for social workers, the organisation champions its member's efforts whilst helping them to achieve the highest professional standards in their field. Compuco implemented a comprehensive CRM with online self service portal that would revolutionise BASW workflows, streamline business process and provide a self-service portal to empower members online.

End to end business process mapping

Working closely with the BASW team, we conducted a series of discovery workshops to understand their day-to-day work.

We used our approach of "As-is / To-be" business process mapping, to document the way the BASW team had been performing sequences of tasks, before using our insight and experience to reimagine those processes leveraging how a next generation CRM platform could automate different steps.

The BASW legacy systems were unable to cater to the association's operational requirements due to a widening gap in integrations between the systems that housed their membership data. As a result, BASW felt there was room to improve the way they managed the regular influx of new member applications or to best communicate with members.

Together we ideated solutions for each of the critical areas of the organisation including membership, events and casework, and built a new blueprint for each of the teams ready to translate into the new CRM.

An integrated self-service portal solution

Configuring the CRM system for better business processes was only the start however.

Our team worked closely with BASW to deliver an integrated self-service portal solution that would better serve the organisation for years to come. The self-service portal dramatically reduced the time spent by staff in responding to member queries, which were often related to updating membership details and renewals.

With the implementation of the self service portal, the sign-up and renewal processes have been completely reimagined. Now members can sign up, edit their details and pay their annual fee online in a matter of minutes, a task that had previously required weeks of preparation by the association's internal team. The process is supported by CiviCRM's automated business rules with the system automatically identifying the correct membership rate for those renewing, whether this be by credit card or direct debit without any manual intervention. 

In addition to this, the self service portal provides extensive Continuous Professional Development functionality. Through the portal members have access to record self-learning activities, access events, and download certificates of attendance.

Other features include functionality so that members who have purchased insurance are able to download certificates from their member area, further reducing the strain on staff time.

The new self service portal allows the BASW team time to focus on what they do best, growing and nurturing their relationships with their members, not performing routine administrative tasks.

Running virtual events, seamlessly

Our team migrated BASW's events management team from Eventbrite to CiviCRM's integrated event module. This move has been advantageous in the era of COVID-19 and social distancing as CiviCRM integrates with a number of virtual event platforms such as Zoom and GotoWebinar.

The BASW events team can now instantly access past event data and rich contact profiles in order to gain insights for future event topics and marketing campaigns.

With a unified membership and events system, BASW’s event attendance has skyrocketed, allowing them to manage over 22,000 unique event registrations in 2021 alone.

Outcomes

At Compuco, our approach to digital transformation is to build solutions with the flexibility and foresight for the challenges of tomorrow. With our integrated CRM system and a new, dynamic self-service portal, BASW are now able to provide a seamless member experience in order to excite and engage members both now and in the future.