Communicating efficiently saves time and money and improves your reputation. Oktalk has been used on several hundred construction projects since 2016.
Why should construction sites use blogs and newsletters?
A blog can help you be proactive when dealing with your neighbours and other stakeholders.
Reputation control
It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to destroy it. Stop conflicts before they escalate.
By handling conflicts at an early stage, you stop conflicts from getting out of hand. People start speculating and talking together when information is missing – especially if it’s about something they have no influence over.
“It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to destroy it” – Warren Buffet
Negative news spread faster than positive news. What could have been a mere disagreement turns emotional and may easily turn into one of the many neighbour conflicts that end up in the conflict councils every year.
With Oktalk you have an efficient and direct channel to your neighbours. Your neighbours know where they can contact you and you can discuss and solve the disagreements – at least you may solve a great part of them.
Risk management
A lot of us live in areas with traffic. Limit the risk of traffic accidents by bringing your neighbours on board.
Almost all builders experience theft from the construction sites and police rarely does anything about it. With your neighbours on board, you may get more eyes on your tools and materials and perhaps avoid theft.
Bad weather also affects a lot of construction sites. With your neighbours taking your side, you may get notified if unusual weather is affecting your construction site.
Competitive advantage
In a competitive industry such as the construction business, your reputation may be the deciding factor in the next project of your clients. Mention your communication routines in your bids and win new projects.
By having good systems for neighbour communications you gain points in most sustainability certifications.
What do our clients in construction say?
«The blog works very well in relation to the requirement in the environmental follow-up plan where we need to inform neighbours and surroundings on noisy work, new pedestrian routes etc. We were excited to know if there would be many enquiries from neighbours during the construction phase. In our experience, published posts reach particularly interested neighbours, associations, the local newspapers Oavis and ØB and we notice that our posts are shared in social media and the local newspapers. This has given us news coverage of positive or neutral character. We have around 125 subscribers on our newsletter which we publish weekly.»
«A channel like Godt Naboskap (previous name of the setup) is important to avoid small cases from turning into bigger conflicts. This is more important than before because discussions quickly escalate on Facebook and in other social media. On the project Police National Emergency Response Center, Skanska answers quickly and in a nice tone of voice, which limits conflicts..»
«Our experience with the blog is that we get a better dialogue with the neighbours than we would have had otherwise. The local newspaper picks up news from our blog and this helps make this an efficient information channel.» – Paul Torgersen, project chief, Police National Emergency Response Center, Ministry of Justice and Public Security.
«The feedback from the clients has been very positive and it’s probably because of the information we published. I cannot think of anything that is missing. The website has been easy to use and edit. Very happy, 10.»”
“«We had a very good experience with Godt Naboskap (previous name of the setup) from the construction of Munkerud Miljøbarnehage. We had more than 50 subscribers on our newsletter during construction.»”
What does the solution look like?
Go to this page to see screenshots and further description.