Case studies

Pick up a few useful tips from some organisations that have effectively promoted automated payments to their customers:

• Bassetlaw District Council (78 Kb PDF): Becoming involved in a growing partnership of over 20 local authorities who run campaigns based on the Bassetlaw promotions and tap into its team for free advice
• British Red Cross (28 Kb PDF): An innovative online fundraising campaign asking supporters to give “just one hour” of their salary each month by Direct Debit
• Broadland District Council (55 Kb PDF): Withdrawing the use of credit slips to coincide with a postal mailing highlighting the benefits of Direct Debit over cheques and cash
• Burnley Borough Council (95 Kb PDF): Added additional payment dates throughout the month and also introduced Paperless Direct Debit
• Canterbury City Council (76 Kb PDF): Created a powerful, integrated marketing campaign based on research into residents' attitudes to Direct Debit around the key message "Do it direct"
• Colchester Borough Council (106 Kb PDF): Investing time and money in training customer facing staff. Including giving best practice advice and guidance about handling customer enquiries
• Craven District Council (99 Kb PDF): Used special advisors in the town centre, local supermarkets and Post Offices to talk directly to the public about the benefits of switching to Direct Debit
• Daventry District Council (56 Kb PDF): Offered a choice of two payment dates enabling Direct Debit payers align payments to their salary date proved successful
• Denbighshire County Council (111 Kb PDF): Undertaking research with local residents they discovering the majority of people in the area were paid around the 18th day of other month. So an extra payment option date was added to coincide with that date
• Isle of Wight Council (72 Kb PDF): Found some simple promotional activity coupled with changes to the offering were very successful
• London Borough of Islington (59 Kb PDF): Offered a £20 discount for signing up to Direct Debit and then gave the option to donate that discount to a climate change fund proved a winning combination
• North Norfolk District Council (76 Kb PDF): Developed a promotional campaign around the simplicity of using Direct Debit - as easy as ABC
• RSPCA (22 Kb PDF): Encouraged potential new recruits to pledge not only financial contributions to the RSPCA by Direct Debit, but also to support the campaign to change animal welfare laws by signing a petition
• Rutland County Council (131 Kb PDF): Used a series of simple initiatives that educated residents about the advantages of automating payments and made it easier to sign then up to Direct Debit
• Sefton Council (52 Kb PDF): A fundamental change in customer service provision was key to an increase in Direct Debit uptake. Instead of operating multiple satellite finance offices the council changed to just two full service facilities for all financial enquiries – taking the opportunity to try to get residents to switch to Direct Debit
• Staffordshire Moorlands District Council (98 Kb PDF): Used three promotions to raise awareness of Direct Debit in the local community, introduced AUDDIS and channelled paperless Direct Debit applications through a dedicated phoneline
• The Thistle Foundation (28 Kb PDF): Implementing Paperless Direct Debit presented them the ideal opportunity to upgrade existing Standing Order donors
• Woking Borough Council (54 Kb PDF): Providing residents with the chance to sign up to pay their council tax over the phone proved to be really successful
• Warrington Borough Council (180 Kb PDF): Discovering the reasons why some customers chose not to pay council tax bills by Direct Debit kick started a successful promotional campaign
• Wear Valley District Council (190 Kb PDF): Developed an inspirational campaign and a free prize drawer to encourage Direct Debit take up
• Wolverhampton City Council (91 Kb PDF): Offered a huge range of payment options – spread across 10 or 12 months; in 40 weekly or 20 fortnightly instalments; quarterly; bi-annually or once a year