About ACCA

ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is a global professional accountancy body that sets standards and provides qualifications worldwide, supporting nearly 250,000 members and over 520,000 future members around the world.

Since its expansion to China in 1988, ACCA has built a strong community of certified accountants in the region, driving sustainable development of the industry, while connecting China with the world.

The prestigious Association is continuously working to elevate its digital presence in China and stay better connected with its affiliates and members.

Background

In China, in addition to a WeChat Official Account, ACCA is using WeCom as the go-to communication channel with ACCA affiliates*. It helps the Association seamlessly handle inquiries and facilitate affiliates’ conversions into members.

*ACCA affiliates are individuals who have passed the exams for the ACCA qualification but have not completed the mandatory steps to become a certified member.

In business (B2B or B2C) contexts, think of the affiliates as prospects that ACCA needs to guide and support to transition into members. Just like potential clients in other industries, these affiliates represent an important group that ACCA aims to nurture and convert into loyal members.

How ACCA Elevated Affiliate Engagement & Conversion with Strategic WeCom Strategies

Align Requirements via Exploration Workshops

First, all stakeholders, including Marketing, Digital, Customer Service, and IT departments attended a series of exploration workshops to:

• Learn about China’s digital landscape, WeCom, and its benefits
• Explore key business cases where WeCom can be used to elevate internal and external communication, enhance customer recruitment, engagement, & retention, lead generation & nurturing, and more
• Align requirements and expectations on leveraging WeCom at ACCA

Via expert knowledge sharing, stakeholders at ACCA can receive tailored guidance to their specific concerns and challenges.

In addition, the workshops facilitated opportunities for participants to exchange ideas and best practices for WeCom deployment and apply workshop learnings to the Association’s unique context.

Establish Clear WeCom User Journeys

Given the diverse entry points for new affiliates to add ACCA staff’ WeCom — such as scanning QR codes or following deep links — the organization established different user journeys tailored to distinct scenarios.

These journeys comprehensively address the full spectrum from initial onboarding and engagement phases to the pivotal conversion process for both affiliates and those poised for membership conversions.

Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

In addition to defining clear user journeys, standard operating procedures were set in place.

They serve as guiding frameworks for all relevant ACCA departments to ensure alignment with the overarching vision of harnessing WeCom to welcome, nurture, and convert affiliates into members.

Track Engagement & Conversion Rates

ACCA utilizes a supporting WeCom SaaS tool to effectively track engagement and conversion rates. This tool also helps automatically segment affiliates based on profile mapping from the Association’s global CRM database to empower future targeting strategies.

Develop a Marketing Engagement Calendar

On top of the defined user journeys from recruitment to conversion, ACCA designs a marketing engagement calendar to ensure all customer segments are engaged at least once during the campaign period.

Key Takeaways for WeCom Strategies

From the lessons learned from ACCA's effective utilization of WeCom, below is the ultimate checklist for brands to consider when integrating WeCom into their China roadmap:

With a strong foundation established, brands like ACCA can anticipate significant improvements in various KPIs, including:

• Customer recruitment
  • Customer recruitment rate from online touchpoints
  • Customer retention rate
  • Foot traffic recruited by WeCom through omnichannel journeys (e.g., offline event registration & attendance)
• Conversions:
  • Affiliates into members (for ACCA)
  • Sales by remote selling (for retail)
• Customer engagement:
  • Response rate within one day on WeCom
  • Average response time within WeCom
  • Visibility rate for WeCom Moments
  • Customers that are reached by WeCom messages or Moments
• Customer management, data capturing, and operations:
  • Number of staff transferring to WeCom from their personal WeChat accounts
  • Tagging rate based on customers’ characteristics and behaviors
  • Number of customer profiles identified by ID mapping

Furthermore, strategic WeCom deployment can also contribute to the Association achieving its overarching goals - driving renewals and fostering stronger connectivity and impressions within the accountancy community in China.