Transforming Pact’s website through automation, self-service, and targeted content

Results in a snapshot 

Established in 1991, Pact is a UK membership organisation dedicated to advancing the independent film, television and online production sector. Pact champions a diverse range of organisations, from nascent firms to large “super indies,” supporting its members through resources, events, and advocacy.

The Challenge

Pact's website, which is vital for the delivery of member services, needed significant modernisation. Major workflows, such as membership and production registrations, required members to either download and complete PDFs or to use a third-party application. This added friction to the user experience and increased Pact’s administrative burden, as this lacked integration with its CRM and accounting systems, and therefore required time-consuming manual workarounds.

Pact’s website was also unable to collect user engagement data; insights the organisation could have used to improve its services. Additionally, Pact faced challenges in member communications and content customisation, with difficulties in navigating the website, segmenting emails for targeted communication, and getting time-sensitive communications out on time. This impacted the member experience with a common complaint being that members were often unable to find and access key resources.

Pact needed a new solution to support member services, one that was better integrated, highly automated, and powered by a single source of truth.

The Project

Pixl8 joined forces with Pact at a challenging time. The vendor initially selected to work on  the new website and CRM had not managed to deliver the project and the organisation was scrambling to find a replacement that could meet their tight and fixed deadlines.

Pixl8, along with a Microsoft Dynamics integration partner, stepped up to the challenge, agreeing on a phased implementation to accelerate programme delivery. This approach also allowed headroom for Pact to reconfigure systems throughout the deployment and benefitted members, who could adjust to the new website incrementally.

Today, Pact’s website and member communications are powered by Pixl8MX, Pixl8’s advanced digital experience member platform, integrated with Pact’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM database.

The new CRM and website provide Pact with a 360-degree view of all member, prospect, and stakeholder data, including contacts, organisations, events, membership, professional development, touchpoints with Pact, and marketing and communications information.

This single source of truth drives website automation and underpins new self-service features for members. A new wizard tool, for example, streamlines enrolment and renewal by guiding members through the associated workflow.

Meanwhile, Pixl8’s content management tools enable Pact to edit, change and deliver personalised content to members. Using an array of widgets, Pact can now ensure that tailored content is delivered to individual members based on their interactions, interests, activities, and other data held in its CRM.

Benefits and Results

Reduced administrative overheads

By streamlining and automating Pact’s business processes and creating a centralised data source, Pixl8 has helped drive operational efficiencies.

• Automated production registration saves approximately 15 minutes per registration, equating to over 65 hours per year for the Business Affairs team.
• Improved parent company linkage and downloadable equity reports reduce administrative time by 30 minutes per production.
• A reduction in queries related to using third-party applications saves 30 minutes per week for the Business Affairs and Membership team.
• Online member joining and renewal processes save the Membership team 15 minutes per application, with 3-10 applications processed per week.
• The self-service MyPact area cuts down on 7 manual update requests per week, saving the team 30 minutes per request.
• Data deduplication alerts within the CMS have saved approximately 5 days per year in data cleansing tasks.

Pact has also reduced time spent servicing member requests for guidance in completing their applications. In the past, members requested help in completing renewal forms in approximately 20% of cases. This is in part due to the complexity of matching Pact’s diverse membership types to the correct membership fee category. Now, thanks to the Wizard support tool along with new autocomplete functionality, Pact’s renewal process is now 100% self-service with the organisation not needing to assist a single member through the process

With all members able to self-serve through a web portal, Pact no longer needs to waste time and effort on manual data processing. As a result, the administrative burden for managing member services on the website has plummeted. This saving enables Pact’s staff to focus on higher-value tasks, improving its offering to members.

By streamlining and automating Pact’s business processes and creating a centralised data source, Pixl8 has helped drive operational efficiencies.

A better member experience

Pixl8's advanced automation and self-service features have streamlined the member experience, making it more seamless and responsive. For instance, whereas previously member companies waited up to two days for new user logins, they now self-serve online and gain immediate access to the logins. This shift has slashed Pact's related workload by 80%, while greatly reducing friction for members.

When it comes to content, members have praised how easy it now is to navigate the website and access resources. The insights emailed to them by Pact are also much more relevant to each member’s specific roles and membership grades, as Pact can now leverage member data and precise email lists for better targeting.

 

Improved decision making and reporting

The intelligence from Pact’s CRM is being used by the organisation to improve reporting and achieve a richer knowledge of the membership. This central source of data is helping Pact make data-based decisions, rather than having to rely on assumptions. For instance, the better integration of marketing and sales processes and systems is supporting the logging of all one-to-one interactions, communication tracking and analysis, which helps Pact as it looks to improve access to and distribution of member content.

Meanwhile, the flexibility of the new website and CRM means that when Pact launched new products or services, it can do so rapidly and without the need for custom development.

A consultative and collaborating partnership

Throughout the project, Pact has benefitted from a highly responsive and collaborative approach taken by Pixl8. This included working closely with third parties, including Pact’s website designer, to ensure that Pact’s requirements were met as far as possible in the final integration. 

Pixl8 also provided a high level of consultancy to help guide the development of the project, advise on best practices, and ensure that the final system could be deployed efficiently. The organisation cites the development of its onboarding Wizard and its approach to managing email lists as two key areas where Pixl8’s consultative approach paid dividends. Finally, Pixl8 delivered an in-depth training programme so that Pixl8’s team can run the website and CRM with complete confidence and use the functionality to its greatest extent.

Looking ahead

Working with Pixl8, Pact has successfully reduced its administrative burdens and created a single source of data to support more tailored content and digital experiences for members. The organisation plans to expand its use of Pixl8’s Eventfolio product to create tailored events for its various membership groups.

In the future, Pact aims to further harness the personalisation capabilities of the platform—an area where it has only begun to explore the potential. By enhancing email automation and refining personalised member journeys, Pact seeks to further reduce manual processes while improving the overall member experience.

With these advancements, Pact will continue to enhance its membership offering and deliver the high-quality services and content that its members expect.

 

 

 

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