An Optimized Customer Experience Relies on Impactful Stakeholder Engagement
Emma Benjamin, former Senior Consultant specializing in stakeholder engagement and strategic communications in the public safety and rural broadband domains
Kerianne Gibney, former Consultant II with expertise in virtual and in-person stakeholder engagement in the public safety, homeland security, and rural broadband domains
Successful Federal programs start with stakeholder engagement. As discussed in our recent “Connecting Customer Experience and Communications” blog post, it is crucial for government agencies to understand what the communities they serve truly need. This is driven by stakeholder engagement – talking to the people in those communities to understand what their needs are, what solutions would work best for them, and how successful the solutions are after they’re up and running.
Stakeholder engagement ensures access to the data needed to make the government’s efforts successful. Placing stakeholders at the forefront of all recommendations and solutions allows the government to have an in-depth understanding of their communities’ needs, and guarantees that information drives their research and development (R&D), program plans, policy development, or activities. Successful stakeholder engagement also allows the government to connect with partners that are necessary to accomplish their mission, including potential grant recipients, Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) partners, collaborators, and sponsors.
On the other side of the equation, stakeholder engagement ensures that communities understand the opportunities available to them. Government agencies can’t operate in a vacuum. As discussed in an earlier Corner Alliance blog post, services need to be informed at the beginning, middle, and end by the stakeholders they intend to support. When stakeholders are engaged at each stage, the government can build opportunities that match their needs and stakeholders are more likely to participate and stay engaged in the future.
At Corner Alliance, we use stakeholder engagement to learn from the communities our clients serve. We listen to understand and turn feedback into actionable change. Corner Alliance helps the government successfully deliver what their stakeholders ask for by centering meeting design around their needs and desires. Understanding that not one style fits all, we push for improvement by distributing feedback surveys following stakeholder engagement events in order to learn more about what was successful and what could be improved for future events. For instance, we've found recent success emerging from the two-year hiatus on in-person events with the introduction and integration of all-new, interactive sessions and enhanced networking opportunities. For one client, we recommended utilizing campfire-style discussion sessions and saw attendee satisfaction ratings surge, not only compared to their past two virtual conferences but also compared to their last in-person conference three years ago.
Without stakeholder engagement, the government may make assumptions about what their stakeholders need. Making assumptions rather than involving stakeholders from the very beginning can lead to solutions that aren’t successful when implemented. Stakeholder engagement helps the government put hypothesized use cases into practice in order to test technology or policy in the environment it would be implemented in to further ensure success. The government can update their research, policy, or programmatic plans and make adjustments to best fit the needs of stakeholders they serve.
Corner Alliance is flexible and adaptable to provide the government with the recommendations and services that fit their stakeholders’ unique needs. To this end, we provide stakeholder engagement services to the Federal government in several forms. In-person efforts include:
Educational and technical assistance workshops
Office hours
Roundtable discussions
Conferences
Stakeholder meetings
Tours
Trade Show booths
Additionally, Corner Alliance built out a suite of virtual stakeholder engagement tools and processes to address new needs and engagement styles. These include:
Virtual tours
Digital conferences
Online surveys
Informational webinars, virtual trainings, and virtual office hours
Interviews
Focus groups
The COVID-19 pandemic changed how Corner Alliance approaches stakeholder engagement, and our ability to deliver both virtual and in-person opportunities. Now at the onset of engagement planning, we work with agencies on building COVID-19 protocols that fit the community level of the in-person event location. We also adjust meeting design to accommodate social distancing including rotating schedules and outdoor sessions. If applicable, we’ll take a hybrid approach to events to provide both passive viewing and live engagement opportunities. When stakeholders aren’t able to travel, Corner Alliance creates virtual tours for our clients. And with any virtual engagement, big or small, we use online collaboration tools to keep the event as engaging as in-person events.
Corner Alliance works with the government to create results for their communities. This starts and ends with stakeholder engagement. Looking for more information? Follow us at @CornerAlliance, or contact us at bd@corneralliance.com to set up a meeting. Be sure to check out the other blog posts from this series including “Connecting Customer Experience and Communications” and “The Devil’s in the Details When it Comes to Grants Management.”
Authors
Emma Benjamin, former Senior Consultant supporting the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division, has a mission to contribute optimism and an eye for detail to every project and solution, big or small. She is a strategic communications and outreach manager with backgrounds in political communications and public affairs. She holds a master's degree in Media and Strategic Communication from George Washington University.
Kerianne Gibney, former Consultant supporting the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division, has a mission to make a powerful impact achieving innovative solutions for the government. She has expertise in stakeholder engagement, meeting design, and meeting facilitation, leading stakeholder engagement initiatives for PSCR, most recently with the 2022 Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting. She is passionate about improving public safety by helping to advance communications technology for first responders.