Delivering digital engagement and collaboration

by BECG | Jul 19, 2021

Delivering digital engagement and collaboration

Services

Content marketing

Design & Creative

Digital & web design

Digital consultation

Political & stakeholder engagement

Strategy & campaigns

The Brief

BECG was instructed to develop and facilitate a consultation programme for Water Resources West on its 25-year water resource plan.

The consultation was multi-faceted encompassing a wide range of topics such as water transfers, environmental direction, options for water sourcing, and usage of public sector water courses. Over 1,000 stakeholders from different sectors needed to be engaged including regulators, NGOs, and private sector businesses.

Our Approach

BECG developed a consultation programme across four workstreams:

Priorities and positioning
Options for water sources and usage
Environmental ambition
Water transfers

The consultation responded to the challenges of Covid19, and the associated guidance around social distancing, utilising a mixture of digital engagement methods. This included workshops, webinars, and the use of an online hub to collect feedback. Our stakeholder engagement system, Built to Engage, provided an easy to manage and secure platform to store stakeholder data and feedback.

BECG utilised our innovative virtual conferencing platform to facilitate the consultations. The first workstream used a webinar, allowing attendees to hear from Water Resources West and ask questions about the plans, vision, and future of the organisation.

he second stream involved a variety of interactive workshop sessions for stakeholders. These walked attendees through future plans of Water Resources West and asked them to identify geographical areas of interest on an interactive map of the region. This provided a visual representation of the interests of each attendee and the organisations they represented.

For the third and fourth workstreams, BECG launched an online consultation hub, IdeaStream. This encouraged online discussion and allowed stakeholders the opportunity to engage with plans in their own time. All feedback collected through the hub was stored and analysed through the Built to Engage platform.

The results

BECG developed and managed a webinar attended by 70 cross-sector stakeholders, a virtual workshop attended by 30 stakeholders from the private and public sectors, as well as regulators, and a virtual hub open to 1,000 users to collaborate and discuss the future of water with one another The digital approach successfully brought together stakeholders covering a broader geography than would typically have been possible with more traditional face-to-face regionalised events.

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Driving best practice social media customer service

by BECG | Jul 16, 2021

Driving best practice social media customer service

Services

Digital Communications

Digital consultation

Social media

Background

The water industry is quite unique with heavy regulation from the industry body Ofwat. When it comes to customer service, water companies are gearing up to record and report on the number of complaints received via all communications channels including social media.

Key Project Information

Ensure customers receive the highest levels of customer service, as measured by the industry regulator Ofwat.
Improve customer service response times and response quality on social media.
Establish a single view of all social media activity spanning both the Customer Service team and the Marketing Communications team.
Monitor the sentiment of customer engagements and record an audit trail of all social media activity.

How we assisted

As part of a wider digital transformation initiative, the team were seeking a new solution that would allow the organisation to deliver a better, faster customer experience on social media.

CrowdControlHQ, a social media management platform, owned by BECG, worked with the client to establish a social service channel, offering them enhanced monitoring and reporting in an easy to use system for their agents.

Because of the strict regulations on complaints, it was vital that South Staffs Water were able to monitor and respond quickly to new enquiries on social media, making it as easy as possible for customers to get in touch.

The Result

With CrowdControlHQ, South Staffs Water have improved their social media customer service capabilities resulting in a better customer experience.

Additionally, the Communications team now have a single dashboard to collaboratively plan and schedule content, and drive greater engagement with customers and local communities on social.

Ability to manage social media customer care enquiries at scale in times of crisis or incident, with an average response time of just 2 minutes.
Can safely manage hundreds of social media interactions with a complete audit trail of all activity and sentiment.
Established a reliable and repeatable process to record complaints on social media which can be reported to senior management and the industry body Ofwat.
A shared dashboard for all social media engagements across the Customer Service and Communications teams, allowing close collaboration and resulting in a better overall customer experience.
Ability to plan and schedule social media content in advance, and easily report on the performance with detailed campaign and post analytics.

See why hundreds of brands use CrowdControlHQ to get more results from social media.

Find out more.

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Southampton Airport’s runway extension

by BECG | Jul 13, 2021

Southampton Airport’s runway extension

Services

Digital consultation

Planning consultation communications

Political & stakeholder engagement

Social media

Strategic consultations

Background

Southampton Airport, one-third of the AGS Airports group, retained BECG to provide communications and stakeholder engagement services in support of its runway extension proposals. Following the collapse of budget airline Flybe, Southampton sought permission from Eastleigh Borough Council to extend the northern end of its runway by 164 metres, in order to maintain its viability as a regional airport

Key Project Information

Southampton Airport’s runway application faced significant opposition from a well-organised coalition of environmental and residents’ groups. As a result of their campaigning, Eastleigh Borough Council’s initial public consultation on the runway application showed that nearly 68% of respondents opposed the plans. These figures reflected the activity of a vocal minority rather than the position of most local people in the Borough and wider region, so BECG was brought on board to help manage the application communications.

How we assisted

• For three subsequent public consultations over the course of nearly a year, BECG delivered a comprehensive communications strategy designed to connect with the supportive, yet disengaged, majority within the community. Deploying a range of social media and digital methods, direct public affairs engagement with councillors and MPs, as well as work with broadcast and traditional media, BECG informed local people about the runway application, explained why it mattered to the future of their airport, and asked them to register their support on Eastleigh Borough Council’s planning file or contact their councillor.

• In doing so, the campaign reached out to people who never normally engage with a planning application of any kind. By the end, the voice of the supportive, previously silent majority was heard: nearly 4,800 local people registered their support for the airport’s runway, with more than 60% of respondents backing the scheme.

• In tandem with supporter mobilisation, BECG also managed consistent engagement with stakeholders, connecting the airport with senior Council leaders, influential local parliamentarians, regional business leaders, before producing clear briefing materials for politicians setting out the case for a longer runway.

• BECG’s South Team was also an integral part of the core team that prepared Southampton Airport for 33 hours of determination meetings before Eastleigh Borough Councillors. .

Outcome

• At a meeting of its Full Council in April 2021, Eastleigh Borough Council voted by a clear and decisive majority to grant planning consent for the runway proposals, safeguarding the future of Southampton Airport and offering job security to hundreds, while opening up employment opportunities for thousands.

• This planning approval represents a landmark achievement, as it is the first time that an airport in the UK has secured permission to extend or expand its runway since Aberdeen in 2011.

• BECG continues to be involved with the post-decision communications with councillors, MPs, and the local community.

Your team had to fire up the general public to vote to save the airport. And, wow, they did it! The targeting was most effective and the results show the effect and impact. The staff at the airport are delighted, they have job security for the first time in a year. A large amount of that is down to your superb team.

Operations Director, Southampton Airport

The support, advice and expertise from BECG was absolutely central to us securing last week’s result, which has safeguarded the future of Southampton Airport. For BECG to have galvanised support in the way they did was a major achievement and we were lucky to have them on our side.

Head of Communications, AGS Airports

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Stonewater Providing A Safe Place To Think

by BECG | Jun 28, 2021

Stonewater Providing A Safe Place To Think

Services

B2B & B2C PR

Content marketing

Corporate reputation

Corporate social responsibility

Design & Creative

Digital Communications

Social media

Strategy & campaigns

Video & animation

Background

Housing provider Stonewater , has always taken its role in preventing and tackling domestic abuse seriously.

Stonewater found that many organisations responsible for helping people access accommodation and assistance were struggling to keep up with the surge in cases now needing referrals, and were keen to connect with these organisations to make them aware of their specialist services.

Key project information

Recognising the desperate need for more to be done, Stonewater knew it had to:

Raise awareness of its Extended Domestic Abuse service and additional bed spaces available amongst key referrers
Communicate its specialist services and expertise, as well as the dedicated support available for some of the hardest to reach communities

With the likelihood increasing of further lockdowns, and the potential for more people needing help, Stonewater knew it had to move quickly and with clarity to get word out widely – and connect people to a hugely sensitive issue during a time of national crisis.

How we assisted

Working in close partnership, Stonewater and BECG recognised a series of combined factors which meant the campaign strategy needed to be highly targeted and agile to ensure effective reach: referrers are often ‘multi-agency’, therefore complex by nature; the sensitivity around the issues of domestic abuse, particularly within core groups – including the LGBTQ+ community, South Asian women, and women with complex needs – and additional layers of urgency with COVID-19 and lockdown.

Stonewater and BECG also recognised that the campaign profile could be boosted by drawing on wider topical domestic abuse awareness events such as national White Ribbon Day and the start of 16 Days of Action to end violence against women.

BECG developed a strategic campaign combining direct marketing and social media to reach referrers (primary audience) and raise awareness amongst communities (secondary) of Stonewater’s support. The campaign was amplified internally to reinforce Stonewater’s commitment to providing specialist domestic abuse support for those at risk.

Outcome

BECG created a distinctive, familiar, inclusive campaign identity conveying a sense of safety and empowerment. The campaign ident, a combined speech bubble and home device, represented Stonewater’s core offer – A Safe Place to think, to breathe – with the speech bubble reinforcing Stonewater’s desire to open up the conversation with referrers around support for those affected.

The campaign had three core elements: factual content to help inform referrers, a suit of video content featuring Stonewater colleagues explaining the specialist services available, and survivor stories giving voices to survivors of domestic abuse supported by Stonewater, and those working to support them.

Awards

Shortlisted in the UK Content Awards 2021

Categories:

Not-for-profit / charity campaign of the year
Integrated content campaign of the year
Social media content campaign of the year

Shortlisted for the PRCA Dare Awards South East

Categories

Charity/Not for profit

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BTA

by Ewan Castle | Dec 2, 2020