Prostate Cancer UK
Turning customer experience into an engine for growth
Great customer experience is never an accident. It is the outcome of how an organisation is built. Prostate Cancer UK invested over £4m a year in acquisition, but retention and cross-engagement hadn't been tackled in a joined-up way. We designed a strategy to change that from the inside out.
The challenge
Prostate Cancer UK supported multiple audiences: donors, supporters, and men affected by prostate cancer. The signals of untapped value were clear: 41% of emailable customers hadn't opened an email in a year, and the largest segment had taken one action for the charity but done nothing since.
The issue wasn't effort. It was system design. Three structural gaps stood in the way: operations that weren't fully customer-led, engagement that happened in silos rather than connected journeys, and no single framework tying experience, engagement behaviour and lifetime value together.
What we did
The three-year Customer Engagement Strategy was built on one hypothesis: better customer centricity leads to better experience, which drives more engagement, which raises lifetime value. It worked across four fronts.
Fix the foundations
Upstream change to make the organisation easier to do business with: data and CRM clean-up, a dedicated Customer Operations function to own supporter processes end to end, a narrative marketing calendar, and standardised processes for data, campaign coding and workflows.
Systematically improve experience
Experience treated as cumulative, not touchpoint by touchpoint: a full thanking review, CSAT at key moments, secret shopping via a stewardship tracker, customer deep dives, and a loyalty survey, so experience became measurable and actively managed rather than anecdotal.
Put real supporters at the centre
The Supporter Care team was empowered to bring real supporter experiences into the heart of the organisation. Real letters, emails, conversations and feedback, both positive and negative, were shared in every monthly team meeting. The team was also given budget to help supporters with real problems, whatever those turned out to be.
Make engagement more relevant
Moving from 'spray and pray' to tailored, multichannel journeys: segmentation and content tagging, journey testing by channel preference, a bespoke customer engagement score, a cross-sell framework, and engagement events to deepen emotional connection.
The results
The breakthrough was a single framework linking experience (CSAT, stewardship and loyalty scores), engagement (engagement score, second actions, tenure) and value (year 1, year 2 and total lifetime value), so the charity could test, with data, how improvements in loyalty translated into financial and mission impact.
The strategy delivered more than better campaigns; it changed how the organisation worked. Stronger operational control meant more consistent experiences, better feedback loops meant faster evidence-based improvement, and more relevant engagement meant deeper relationships rather than just more messages.
The bottom line: Prostate Cancer UK turned customer experience from a frontline concern into an organisation-wide system, aligning operations, insight and engagement so better experiences reliably drove stronger relationships and long-term value.
“Anna's knowledge about building income through customer experience is second-to-none. Her mind is a powerhouse. Beyond that, she's a joy to work with; thoughtful, collaborative and a lovely person too!”
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