Replying to comments

Engagement is all about listening and engaging residents in conversation. Commonplace already has a rich set of methods to communicate using news and newsletters, but how do you respond to particular questions?

Collecting these questions and responding with 'themed' news items has been an effective method to demonstrate that comments are being read and ideas taken on board, portraying the sincerity of the engagement to new and existing respondents.

However sometimes it is important to engage in direct dialogue with individuals and groups to aid clarification or harness ideas. For this we've added a new and easy way for project managers to reply to individual comments.

Each comment shows whether or not the author agreed to be contacted without revealing their identity.

Public or private replies

Engagement managers can choose to reply to comments publicly or privately.

Public replies - Reply by engagement team can be seen by anyone and an email is sent to the individual who added the comment and anyone who agreed with the comment.

Private reply - Reply is not shown publicly and only the author of the comment is sent an email with the reply.

For both options a follow up conversation can be facilitated via direct email or a phone call - however the engagement manager sees fit. Commonplace is not a vehicle for this ongoing conversation but a tool for identifying potential issues and initiating a conversation offline.

We will soon be adding this as a standard feature to our Commonplaces. Get in touch for early access to enable it for your Commonplace.