Blueberry reaches out to thousands of businesses in the wake of Brexit

Our client is a leading provider of business support solutions for public bodies such as LEP’s, universities and growth hubs. Our client was representing three LEP regions and five growth hubs within London and the Southeast preceding Brexit.

WHAT THEY NEEDED

In 2019, The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) released funding to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to promote business engagement and intelligence gathering ahead of the EU exit. The ministerial department, which brings together responsibilities for business, industrial strategy, science, innovation, energy, and climate change, supplied the funding before the initial EU exit deadline of 31 October 2019*.

Our client represented three LEP areas that wanted to deliver a high-volume telemarketing campaign to increase their reach. They also sought to gather regional market insights and data, signpost businesses to available support, and generate referrals for the region’s Growth Hubs.

WHAT WE DID

Blueberry was selected as the successful telemarketing partner through a tender selection process. With only two days notice to put the campaign together, we quickly assembled a 20-strong-team of accomplished callers to work on the project daily for two to three weeks. We sourced a cleansed, up-to-date and GDPR-compliant database of the region’s Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) , based on the eligible postcodes covered by each LEP. We developed a series of questions for key decision-makers to discover the impact Brexit could have on their businesses, any risks it posed and how they planned to deal with it.

Within two days we developed the call approach, set up the survey on our CATI system and trained a pool of 20 callers to ensure we could deliver the call activity within the timescale. Across the course of the campaign, we provided weekly data returns for each of the LEPs, which were used to supplement and add to their data returns to BEIS.

We flagged any key responses which identified specific Brexit-related effects, such as economic shocks or new business opportunities. We also highlighted several key themes which cropped up in our conversations with businesses, such as price rises, stockpiling or uncertainty over customer spending.

This helped inform the LEPs reporting back to the BEIS and provided them with ready-made examples of some of the Brexit ramifications identified in their regions. We signposted decision-makers to government assistance available viawww.gov.uk. and referred them to the five Growth Hubs for additional support with their Brexit preparations.

The move helped to raise awareness about Growth Hubs and provided companies with opportunities to work with them on business growth, skills support, and innovation in the workplace.

As a value add, where we were unable to reach a decision-maker by phone, we emailed them a digital version of the survey to increase the overall completion rate.

IN TWO WEEKS

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

Despite the short timescales and the high volume of calls required, we delivered the campaign on time and budget, exceeding the KPIs we had outlined in our tender response. In two weeks we made more than 10,000 calls, identified up to 5,000 decision-makers and talked to over 2,000 of them. From this, we gathered insights for 1,500 businesses and generated almost 1,200 referral and signposting outcomes.

*At 11pm on 31 December, 2020, the UK left the EU single market and customs union.