Thousands of people have provided feedback on mobile phone company O2’s
latest corporate responsibility report after it offered to donate £10
($17.68) to charity for each response it got.
O2 says around 4000 people logged into the feedback area of its report
over the two-week offer period, although not all may have completed the
form correctly.
Charlotte Wolff, O2’s corporate social responsibility manager, said the
idea had not only generated many responses but had provided comment
directly from customers, who are difficult to entice into reading CSR
reports.
‘It’s been good because rather than CSR experts we got people from all
walks of life who had taken the time to browse through the report,’ she
said. ‘We particularly got a lot of customers rather than other
stakeholder groups, which was good because we are trying to reach them
more.’
Wolff said the offer had also increased traffic to the online report.
‘We had so many hits it was unbelievable,’ she said. ‘We were helped by
some coverage of the offer in a report in The Times newspaper, but we
made a similar offer last year and it worked then too.’
Companies have long struggled to generate significant levels of
feedback from stakeholders on their non-financial reports, despite
using devices such as freepost reply cards, prize draws and simple
online forms. Many also hire consultants to canvass the views of small
groups of stakeholders and opinion formers.
Wolff said O2’s offer, so long as it runs for a limited period only,
could be a cheaper and more satisfactory way of getting
stakeholders to respond. ‘Of course it costs money at £10 a time, but
if you were to employ a research organization to get the same kind of
feedback you would definitely end up paying out more,’ she said.
O2, which has 24 million customers worldwide, also published an online
‘one minute summary’ of its latest corporate responsibility report.
The super-brief account, designed to complement the full document,
distills key information into nine paragraphs. ‘Not everyone wants to
read the chairman’s statement and everything in the report, so we felt
a one-minute report would be a bit more engaging,’ said Wolff.
