About Wings4Kidz
Wings4Kidz is a charity aimed to lessen the significant burden and effect of long distance travel for seriously ill children and families by providing a specialist free air service accompanied by a ground transport service, and keeping these families together during this difficult journey.
The Challenge
To manage such a vital logistal operation such as Wings4Kids, it was neccessary to have a system that would record patient and family information along with pilot, driver, ground crew, hospital, donor, and aircraft details.
With over 3000 flights every year transporting sick children, the CRM system needs to provide everyone involved with the correct information to ensure the well being of the child involved. With lives at risk, they cannot afford to miss appointments for treatment through error, miscommunication or people not being where they should be.
Sudden changes in a child's condition mean that flight schedules have to be flexibles, often operating at short notice so anything that can be done to remove time-wasting inefficiencies, such as unnecessary phone calls or rechecking information can be life-saving.
The Solution
When Kevin set up Wings4Kidz, Act! was the obvious solution for creating a robust information system that everyone in the charity could work from and rely on. “As a business consultant, I began using Act! myself in 2000, so I’m always telling my clients about the importance of having a great CRM to manage sales and customer information”, explains Kevin.
Act! is now very much at the heart of Wings4Kidz’s logistical operations, providing a central information database to coordinate details of each flight so pilots are ready and drivers and cars are in place to take patients between airport and hospital. Using Act! also ensures that the right planes are available.
In order to create a really personalised experience, the Wings4Kids team also record details about parents, siblings, pets, and family life in general. “We want to be as friendly as possible,” says Kevin, “and we go to great lengths to do that because we know we could be flying a child and their family for treatments and check-ups over the next few years.”
The Results
Act! is vital to the critical operations of Wings4Kids. The benefit of having a robust and customised CRM means Wings4Kidz are able to meet its goal of 12,000 passenger journeys every year. By using Act! as a central source of detailed information, the team can provide a personalised experience for every sick child, and their family who flies with them.
Additionally, Act! helps Wings4Kidz manage donations and sponsers., another crucial element in order to keep the charity running. With so much competition among charities, it is easy for them to keep their contacts up-to-date with the charity's work. “Each person wants to know different things,” says Kevin, “so we communicate with them in the way they want to make sure we come across as professionally as possible”.
