We’ve been amazed  by the coverage afforded to of our latest crowdsourcing project with long-time partner, The Royal College of Nursing.

It’s good to see that industry talking shop Dailycrowdsource… 

http://dailycrowdsource.com/2010/10/14/lifestyle/productivity/royal-college-of-nursing-uses-crowdsourcing-to-improve-customer-care/ 

…has its ever-ready, crowdsourced ear to the ground, along with a number of other industry insiders. http://reputationonline.co.uk/2010/10/06/royal-college-of-nursing-also-turns-to-crowdsourcing/

We’ve decided to publish the release in full, as it succinctly puts across the message of the campaign, and it’s importance to RCN, so much better than anything I could cobble together. So here goes…

ROYAL COLLEGE OF NURSING TURNS TO CROWDSOURCING AS PART OF CUSTOMER SERVICE OVERHAUL

In the run up to this year’s National Customer Services Week (October 4 – 10), membership organisation The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is today announcing the launch of its new crowdsourcing microsite, designed to engage staff in the development of an improved customer service strategy.

The microsite, which will be based upon the Crowdworks crowdsourcing platform, will be accessible to all RCN employees and offer RCN management the opportunity to engage with staff across the UK to come up with new ideas to improve the organisation’s offering to its customers. Designed to facilitate a collaborative approach to ideas generation, the CrowdWorks microsite will enable users to donate, vote, discuss and collaborate on any of the ideas and suggestions contributed by the community.

The crowdsourcing micrositewill be live throughout October with ideas generated used to form part of the RCN’s new customer services action plan, due to be published by the end of the year.

Matthew Batten, customer service project manager at RCN, explains: “As a recently certified member of the Institute of Customer Service, it’s important to RCN to thoroughly scrutinise its customer service offering and look at innovative ways to maintain a continued performance improvement strategy.

“Crowdsourcing represents an extremely cost effective way for RCN to benchmark itself against key performance indicators and ensure all staff, from contact centre agents on the front line of customer service provision to management personnel, the opportunity to have their views heard and judged upon individual merits. We’ve used Crowdworks previously for a HR function and recognised some genuinely tangible benefits. I’m hoping our second experience of crowdsourcing will also encourage an atmosphere of best practice and ideas submitted will once again snowball into ideas implemented.”

Nick Wright, founder of Hubbubideas the creators of the Crowdworks platform, comments: “To truly obtain ideas and insight from the frontline – which can then be channelled into targeted training for instance –RCN required a suitable forum for the debate to take place. Because of the size and structure of RCN, traditional consultations or surveys would have proved time, resource and cost intensive.

“RCN is a forward thinking organisation that recognises the benefits of harnessing social media and crowdsourcing to engage with staff on a large scale for the betterment of its customer experience standards. The team at Crowdworks is delighted to be helping RCN to achieve this and I’m confident that the action plan produced, and subsequent improved service levels, will be hailed a triumph by all involved.”