Are you looking to upgrade or transfer your online engagement platform?
If you’ve been using the same online engagement platform for a while, it can seem overwhelming to think about changing, but that’s just what many organisations like yours are doing right now. Read our detailed blog about why you should be upgrading your online engagement platform.
When comparing online engagement software through google searches, demos or even tenders, it’s hard to see clearly what the differences are. We’ve done the hard work for you! Download a copy of our detailed 3-page table comparing the top 6 online engagement software providers.
One major reason people aren’t transferring or upgrading their software is fear of the transition process, worries over lost data or downtime.
Transferring / Upgrading to Engagement Hub
When you upgrade your online engagement platform to Engagement Hub, not only do you take advantage of all the features unique to our software, but we support you every step of the way in the transition to make it quick and simple.
Our team are experts at upgrading clients to Engagement Hub – bringing over your previous consultations, participants lists and uploading your offline engagement databases. The process is so seamless you can transition your existing platform’s URL with no downtime to your stakeholders.
For example, one of the largest Local Governments in Australia, the City of Cumberland, moved over to Engagement Hub transferring over 800 projects and thousands of stakeholders and were “blown away” by the functionality offered within our software.
Reasons clients are upgrading their online engagement platforms
Over the years, we’ve spoken to many clients who’ve transferred over to Engagement Hub. Here are their top reasons for moving:
1. Lack of stakeholder relationship management systems in other platforms
One of the primary reasons organisations are choosing Engagement Hub is because we are the only software to include both an engagement platform and a comprehensive stakeholder relationship management (SRM) system. Most other platforms only provide a basic participant list and organisations requiring stakeholder management are forced to use costly additional software plus messy integrations.
With Engagement Hub, it’s all in one! Log complaints, upload databases, register people for events, upload documents and capture all your stakeholder interactions in one place. View individual profiles and understand that person’s journey with you both offline and online e.g. Did they fill in your survey? Which projects have they viewed? What was their feedback at the public meeting?
Create segments and communicate directly with individuals, segments or your entire database with our built-in email newsletter system and track who’s read and engaged with your emails.
2. Limited number of engagement tools
Clients are upgrading to Engagement Hub to take advantage of the largest number of tools on the market and the powerful flexibility available within each tool. As engagement specialists ourselves, we understand the variety of consultation types and how they change across the project lifecycle and we’ve built Engagement Hub to meet that need.
Other platforms offer third-party add-ons creating more administrative work and no synergy. With Engagement Hub, we’re continually evolving and adding tools – listening to our client’s needs and responding – which is why we have the largest number of tools and the greatest flexibility so you can design your consultation exactly the way you want it.
3. Insufficient Reporting
Whilst transferring over sites from multiple platforms, we’ve seen the limited options offered by other platforms for extracting reports and data.
With an Engagement Hub platform, you have your own Reporting Dashboard giving you a high-level overview of all your engagements. You can then drill down into your data easily with over 20 standard reports built for you such as demographic reports on age, gender & suburb or activity reports by segment, project or most influential users.
Download an editable report on any project or across the whole platform in just one click or download CSVs, charts and any data at any time. You can access detailed email newsletter statistics and easily see who has read your emails and create a segment of those who haven’t to retarget them.
In addition, our unique text analysis tools enable you to see issues and trends across your platform and projects straight away and to easily turn qualitative into quantitative data. Many clients tag feedback during the consultation to monitor how it’s going and can then respond to anything that arises. Once the consultation has finished – you already have all your data analysed and ready to report on.
Get powerful insights into your stakeholders like never before with Engagement Hub’s extensive reporting functionality. View more information and a quick video here.
4. Staff access levels
One common reason for upgrading to Engagement Hub is to reduce the burden on the central communications/engagement team to manage the whole platform and data. Engagement Hub allows you to set and control what projects and data your project administrators have access to and be able to modify this at any time. With unlimited administrators on our standard license, you can easily provide defined access to the platform across your whole organisation.
Allow different departments to take ownership of their project pages and access the reporting or stakeholders they need to, with only the site administrators being able to see the entire platform.
For example, our Local Government clients have been able to provide access to their various teams such as planning, roads, environmental, youth etc making sure your project data is always up to date and reducing your workload.
5. Workflow Task Management
Another of Engagement Hub’s unique features is our Workflow Task Management which allows you to set tasks for other team members/project administrators related to their projects or stakeholders. For example, set tasks to update project data, close projects once completed or review the information before it goes live.
With everything tracked in the system and auto email templates ready to send, you can automate and track all your in-house engagement work – saving you time and providing you with the ability to easily delegate tasks without multiple emails back and forth.
6. Dynamic & Flexible Design
Engagement Hub’s versatile 100% responsive website builder quickly enables you to create stunning websites with theme options, brand integration, custom URLs and more. With new releases every month and unparalleled flexibility in how you design your projects and platform – Engagement Hub offers many more design options than other platforms.
7. Data migration
Seamlessly import and export data from your Engagement Hub platforms to other digital applications. Upload your stakeholder lists, data from offline consultation events or documents relating to a particular stakeholder or segment. For example, if you receive a letter or soft-copy feedback forms – upload these to your SRM, simultaneously tagging the feedback for reporting.
One of the key strengths of Engagement Hub is bringing together all offline and online engagement as we understand that whilst digital is central – you are also engaging your stakeholders in other ways too and it all needs to be recorded and reported on together.
8. Saving money
Many clients who have upgraded to Engagement Hub have been able to replace multiple software purchases with just one Engagement Hub license, often saving thousands of dollars.
As our software is so comprehensive, there’s no need for costly non-integrated software and the related staff time in purchasing, managing and running multiple software programs.
Our simple licenses also don’t contain any hidden costs. Many clients upgrading to Engagement Hub were being charged additional fees for private projects, more project administrators and integrations.
With an Engagement Hub standard license, there are no extra charges for or limits on public/private projects or the number of staff that can access the platform. Importantly there are no surprises or price hikes and all ongoing development and upgrades to benefit our clients come at no additional cost.
9. Ongoing research and development
Unlike other engagement platforms, Engagement Hub does not stand still. Through collaboration with our clients and adapting to emerging technologies, our software is constantly evolving with frequent new features and tools deployed each month.
For example, in the last 3 months, we have released 3 new tools, various design options, new reports, new banner options, SEO improvements and multiple updates to our existing features and functionality.
View our changelog for full details.
10. Responsive Support
Engagement Hub is the only platform to offer a 24/7 helpline – enabling you to submit a ticket anytime and know you will get a response quickly.
Combined with our online knowledge centre, which contains over 200 articles, videos and quick guides, and your dedicated engagement specialist available to you each month for training and support – you will feel fully supported in, not only your platform, but also your whole engagement process.
As engagement professionals ourselves, we help clients by adding value to their projects, making suggestions in consultation design and can assist with extra work such as building projects or creating reports for you.
One of our clients recently said “The support we receive is outstanding. I’ve had extensive experience working with online tools, and Engagement Hub’s customer service is second to none. Whenever we’ve submitted a ticket to the helpdesk, they reply within 24 hours, and always correctly interpret just what we need and implement it quickly.” (Linda MacDonald, NHVR, Australian Federal Government)
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If you’re ready to experience the most comprehensive community and stakeholder engagement platform, contact us to discuss your transition plan and learn more about how you can upgrade to Engagement Hub today
