Comment

Lessons learned: digital consultation during COVID-19

Our Strategic Communications team had always expected there to be a steady increase in demand for digital consultation. However, in spring 2020, the impact of the pandemic put us on fast forward.

To meet the change in habits and regulations after the arrival of measures to control COVID-19, we accelerated the launch of new digital features such as the live chat function on our project websites and online public events. Our Strategic Communications team, operating across the UK and Ireland, has experienced over nine months of delivering virtual consultation programmes – ranging from digital public information events, to community Q&A sessions, stakeholder briefings and facilitating online workshops.

Our clients during this period have included house builders, developers, housing associations, the NHS and local authorities, and we understand the need to meet the expectations of each of them, along with each national regime in which we deliver work.

Despite ongoing changing local and national lockdown restrictions we have been able to remain flexible, using a myriad of digital tools to adapt our strategy and ensure accessibility – enabling us to continue to facilitate two-way communication between communities and our clients.

Despite knowing online interaction was the future of community engagement, we could not have anticipated it becoming the only form of engagement with communities so suddenly. Striking a balance between traditional and online media is essential in building an effective mix of consultation channels which remain relevant to those interested in a development proposal.

We are confident that the digital focus is not just for now; it is here to stay.

Members of our Strategic Communications team have stopped to take stock of this transformative year and below provide their reflections on the lessons learned from consulting during COVID-19.

A more accessible process

Digital consultation has allowed us to make engagement more accessible and enabled us to reach wider audiences. We are able to add a layer of flexibility and informality that shapes the consultation process to suit individual’s interests, existing commitments and lifestyle. People can now join a webinar, watch a recording of a Q&A session or speak to a member of the project team via live chat at a time and place that’s convenient for them.

We have sought to remove some of the barriers and limitations that existed in consulting prior to the digital shift and have seen the number of website visitors more than double in cases where we’ve digitally promoted the consultation via social media advertisement. This isn’t to say that traditional methods of promotion and consultation are no longer important, rather that the process can be more effective when a combination is used to ensure we are making engagement as easy and accessible for people as possible – reaching those who have a real interest in proposals but we may not have engaged with in the past.

More efficient targeting and effective reach

One of the main benefits of digital consultation for our clients is the ability to more efficiently undertake consultation with groups of people who might use or directly benefit from a development, but might otherwise not get involved. For example, we use social media to reach members of the community in the direct vicinity of projects, but we also use demographic tools to target those people who may have an active interest in project proposals based on their age, habits or the sector they work in. For instance, during consultation on Yorkgate Station in Belfast we were able to target railway users as well as neighbours and, most recently, we used LinkedIn to target SciTech sector workers in a consultation on a regionally-significant life sciences project. By reaching out digitally we are able to engage groups by both geography and demographics. This form of balanced consultation actively seeks comments from both neighbouring communities and future users.

Personal interaction still matters

COVID-19 changed everyone’s experience of human contact. Suddenly most of our contact with people outside our households was via video, and, what was once a niche tool became one of the primary channels for personal and business interactions almost overnight. Personal interaction is still really important – communities continue to appreciate seeing and speaking to the people behind proposals, even if this is in a virtual setting.

Increased demographic insights

Digital consultation has enabled us to observe the behaviours of different communities. Behind the scenes of each of our digital consultation programme sits a grid of web analytics that show us exactly how people are interacting with the proposals – for example, which pages they look at and for how long, as well as how they heard about the process and how they feel about the proposals.

By paying careful attention to online behaviours we can continually optimise how we display consultation content, the time and frequency of webinars, and even who speaks at digital public exhibitions, all to better suit the routines and preferences of our audiences.

Digital consultation has afforded us the opportunity to engage with more people than ever before, reaching far beyond the typical attendee of traditional exhibitions in the village hall. We can now spot changes in various demographic-driven behaviours and recalibrate our consultation channels in a timely fashion, allowing us to assist the progress of smooth and efficient planning and place-making strategies.

Efficiencies gained

The efficiencies arising from our digital-led approach have been a real positive.

Residents, stakeholders, project teams and clients have been able to be more efficient with their time (and limited resources) because everyone can be in different locations when connecting via digital methods.

Importantly, ‘time poor’ members of the community who may ordinarily be unable to attend physical information events are much more able to get involved.

A digital-led approach is fast and flexible too, which has meant we have been able to respond to community and stakeholder interest levels, queries and feedback with quick updates and changes in strategy to provide the most effective outcome.

A sustainable approach

Our digital-led approach allows greater flexibility and a more environmentally-sensitive approach towards consultation. By reducing our use of printed materials at public exhibitions, as well as travel by the often large consultant teams, we have been able to provide a more sustainable service which offers greater flexibility when adding or editing content.

Our work

In the last nine months our Strategic Communications team has delivered digital consultation across the UK and Ireland. Since March we have created and hosted

For more information on how our Strategic Communications team can help with your consultation please get in touch with a member of the team.

11 January 2021