Case Study — Compassion Australia

Winning back lapsed supporters — across every channel.

A sensitively orchestrated arrears-recovery programme spanning email, SMS, print and the supporter-service call queues — protecting the child relationship while recovering nearly $1M in digital revenue a year.

Recover the revenue — without risking the relationship.

When a supporter's sponsorship payment lapses, two things are at stake: the recurring revenue that funds a child's development, and the relationship itself. Push too hard and you lose the supporter; do nothing and the sponsorship quietly ends.

We built a multi-channel arrears-recovery programme that resolves lapsed payments with care — escalating sensitively across email, SMS, a physical print piece and a hand-off into Compassion's internal supporter-service call queues. Every touchpoint is composed from live CRM data, so the message always reflects exactly what that supporter gives and how far behind they are.

Impact in numbers

The headline results

~$958K

Digital-attributed revenue · 2025

+ Offline

Print & phone recoveries on top

8,397

Digital gifts recovered · 2025

Channels orchestrated

The recovery sequence

One supporter, four coordinated channels

Each channel plays a distinct role, sequenced to give the supporter every chance to resolve their lapse before it becomes a cancellation.

Channel · Email

Escalating email waves

A sequence of sensitively escalating emails — "we may need to cancel your sponsorship" — each personalised to the supporter and the products they give to, with urgency building wave by wave.

Wave 1

Waves 2 & 3

Wave 4 · final notice

Channel · Print

A letter in the letterbox

For supporters best reached offline, a personalised A4 letter lands in the post — the same message, in a form that's hard to ignore.

Personalised print, triggered from the same journey

Channel · SMS

A short, direct SMS catches supporters who don't open email — a light-touch reminder whose shortened, deep-linked "catch up" link lands them straight in the payment module (see below).

Channel · Phone

GenesysSupporter ServiceCall queues

Where digital and print don't resolve the lapse, the supporter is routed via Genesys into Compassion's internal supporter-service call queues for a personal conversation — recoveries that are additional to the digital figures above.

Behind the catch-up button

Two paths to resolve — self-serve or supported

Every "catch up" button — across the emails, the SMS and the print QR code — leads to one of two carefully built destinations.

Self-serve

The deep-linked catch-up module

The catch-up button is a dynamically deep-linked URL — it resolves the supporter's correct account (many hold more than one) and lands them straight in the payment module to catch up, carrying attribution parameters for accurate behaviour tracking. In SMS, that link is shortened to suit the channel.

Deep-linked catch-up payment module in My Account — The deep-linked catch-up module — the right account, ready to pay

Supported

Cases built for the phone teams

Where a lapse needs a human touch, the journey automatically raises a Salesforce case — pre-filled with the supporter's details, the months missed and the amounts involved — and routes it via Genesys to the supporter-service phone teams, so the right person can act with the full picture in hand.

Automated Salesforce case routed to the supporter-service phone teams — An auto-generated case, routed to the right person with the right information

The complexity — data aggregation

Finding exactly who's in arrears

The hard part isn't sending the messages — it's identifying the right supporters in the first place. A Marketing Cloud automation continuously interrogates the CRM to resolve genuine arrears: reconciling payment status and missed deductions against active sponsorships, spanning multiple product families, and excluding supporters who shouldn't be contacted. The result is a clean, accurate audience — the foundation everything else depends on.

Arrears data-aggregation automation in Salesforce Marketing Cloud — The automation that resolves genuine arrears from live CRM data

The craft — personalised messaging

Firm, but never cold

Arrears messaging has to be direct without damaging the relationship. Every message is dynamically composed — naming the supporter, reflecting whether they give to sponsorship alone or across multiple products, and adjusting tone as the sequence escalates.

Sponsorship[Supporter], we may need to cancel your sponsorships

Broader support[Supporter], we may need to cancel your support

The orchestration

Multiple waves, multiple channels

The journey sequences the whole programme — timing each wave, branching by supporter type, moving people between channels and handing the hardest cases to the call queues, all while protecting the supporter experience.

The multi-wave, multi-channel arrears journey

Revenue recovered, relationships kept