Community consultation is a critical function of modern Government. It ensures that policies, projects and services reflect the needs, expectations and lived experiences of the people they serve.
To manage community feedback, many Local Governments use third-party software, like Engagement Hub, Social PinPoint, and EngagementHQ by Granicus. In this blog, we will examine the limitations of these platforms and present a more efficient and effective alternative: a custom-developed community engagement module.
The problem: Inefficient community engagement hub software
Community engagement software is a digital platform that enables government organisations to consult, inform, and collaborate with their community in a structured, transparent and accessible way. It provides tools to gather feedback, run surveys, publish project information, and facilitate two-way communication between the public and government decision-makers.
Off-the-shelf tools are designed for convenience, but they often come with hidden trade-offs:
- Fragmented user experience - Users are redirected to a separate platform with different URLs, styling, navigation, and accessibility structures. This reduces confidence that the consultation is official or secure.
- Accessibility and WCAG compliance risks - Many off-the-shelf tools are not fully WCAG 2.2 AA compliant.
- Increased costs and recurring licensing fees - Platforms operate on subscription-based models with rising yearly costs.
- No single customer profile - Engagement data sits separately from website analytics, form submissions, CRM data, contact profiles, and marketing and personalisation tools. This prevents the creation of a single, unified resident profile, reducing strategic capability.
- Vendor lock-in - The Government becomes fully dependent on the vendor’s platform, roadmap, pricing, uptime and support.
- Restricted customisation and branding - Limited adjustments to layout, design and features, leading to inconsistent branding and making the engagement experience feel “bolted on”.
The result?
A clunky user experience that makes it harder for residents to engage and requires more work for your internal team to extract simple insights. You’re also paying a premium price for a long list of features that you probably don’t use.
The solution: A custom-built engagement module developed into your existing website
A custom-built engagement module is designed to create a future-proof, extensible engagement hub that can evolve alongside the City’s broader digital ecosystem.
Within this module, editors can create engagement projects with configurable filters, statuses, categories, stages, and metadata to support different consultation types.
Because it’s integrated into your current CMS, the module can also leverage all existing content widgets. This means editors can incorporate accordions, FAQs, documents, images, videos, hotboxes, timelines, and other reusable components directly within each engagement page, ensuring a consistent and familiar editing experience.
The module also includes a dedicated listing page equipped with search and filtering tools, making it easy for community members to browse current, upcoming and past engagements by topic, location, category or status.
How we’ve helped Local Councils
At ALYKA, we’ve worked with several Local Councils to make this switch. Each was paying a significant annual subscription fee for third-party software with features they never used. For around half the cost of one annual licence, we built a lightweight, accessible, and easy-to-manage custom module directly within their website.
The simplified process also led to higher engagement, since residents could quickly leave feedback without navigating away from the site.
Improving your customer engagement hub
When it comes to driving community engagement, simple is better.
ALYKA’s team of expert Kentico and WordPress developers can help you build a custom form that’s designed for the needs of your team and your audience. Get in contact today.