When a road is closed, a bridge renovated or a neighbourhood suffers from diversions for weeks, one thing almost always arises: emotion. This is because the environment has to break its habitual behaviour, which creates resistance. You reduce this resistance by approaching the environment in a personalised way. This personal approach is the difference between a campaign that generates understanding and one that actually generates complaints and frustration. After all, a positive annoyance experience starts with good annoyance communication. In this article, you will find out how messages can be personalised, what the benefits are and how you can apply this yourself via your BaaS platform.
Nuisance communication is emotion
The environment does not only react rationally to information about upcoming work. Initial reactions also involve emotion. From a behavioural perspective, you can think of:
- Habitual behaviour: “This is my regular route”
- Fear of losing time: “I lose precious time by detouring”
- Unexpected: “What the hell is this?”
Yet nuisance communication is too often couched as, “road X closed, follow B”. This way provides information but does not respond to the feeling it evokes in the receiver. While the feeling determines the perception from the environment.
Personalised communication
Every person is unique. Therefore, one generic letter or communication will never work the same way for everyone. The environment letter remains important, but it is only one part of the overall approach. With complementary digital communication, you reach people at the time, place and tone that suits them. And that is exactly where personalisation makes the difference: not by giving more information, but by giving more relevant information. That is why it is good to be clear beforehand about who you are communicating to and what is needed.
Making a targeted approach
Improving annoyance perception starts before the journey. People want to know what is changing, why it is happening and what it means for their daily route. Therefore, it is important to inform the surrounding area in good time, so that they can prepare themselves and are not unexpectedly confronted with closures or diversions. Yet communication should also not come too early. If information is shared too far in advance of the works, it often fades from memory and you have to start explaining it again later. This increases the likelihood of surprises and frustration when the work actually starts.
The best balance is therefore about two weeks in advance. During this period, the information is relevant, sticks better and there is enough time to provide additional updates when something changes. Moreover, you can reach different target groups at the right time within these two weeks, so that everyone sees what applies to them. A good communication approach then starts with three key questions:
What target groups do we have?
Nuisance communications normally focus on all residential, commercial and travel traffic within the impact area. Depending on the nature and location of the work, it is then important to determine which groups experience additional impact. Consider international transport movements, secondary schools nearby, cyclists on major routes or businesses with fixed approach routes. These differences determine which target groups should be explicitly addressed and what information is relevant to them. This has an impact on the (social) channels you can best use
What is the desired behaviour?
The desired behaviour is often already determined at the front end. Sometimes a specific diversion route has to be followed, sometimes you want to spread traffic over several routes or encourage alternatives such as cycling, public transport or a different time of departure. The desired behaviour differs per target group and forms the basis for the message you communicate.
What mode of communication do you maintain?
Not every area responds to the same tone, form or message. A message in the centre of The Hague requires a different approach than one in the Achterhoek region. Looking at area characteristics such as demographics, values and preference information gives a better picture of how to address people. After all, every environment requires its own ways of communicating.
How your BaaS platform applies this automatically
With BaaS platform, we help you quickly set up a targeted campaign according to the above method: the platform automatically translates these insights into concrete, appropriate messages. The platform works with three fixed building blocks:
- Standard messages per target group and desired behaviour
There are ready-made texts for each target group that respond to their situation, the nuisance they experience and the behaviour that is desired. Think: local residents, cyclists, through traffic, schoolchildren, transporters, recreational traffic. - A preset of 25 different profiles
These profiles are based on different ways of communicating. From short and direct to more contextual or step-by-step explanations. The platform suggests a number of profiles that fit your project and creates the messages that fit these groups. - Always full control: editing and drafting yourself
You can edit, add to or rewrite any text generated by the platform yourself. Would you rather start from scratch? Then you can also create messages entirely by yourself within the platform and still personalise them automatically for different target groups. This way, within minutes you have a complete set of communication ready that matches the right target group, the desired behaviour and the way of communicating that works in the area.
Conclusion
Nuisance and construction communication contains emotion. Responding to the perception of the surroundings prevents resistance, questions and frustration. This not only generates understanding, but also creates calm in the project team and a smoother execution. Yet in practice, making target group-oriented communication is often difficult. It takes time, requires knowledge of behaviour and requires you to address different groups in different ways.
With your BaaS platform, it doesn't have to be complicated. Within three minutes, a complete set of messages is ready, automatically tailored to target groups, desired behaviour and communication style. You can edit everything or create new texts yourself. Exactly the way you want it. Now that's working as a BaaS.
