Importance of word of mouth when contacting our Coronavirus services

Charlotte is a designer and emergency response volunteer, working in a team researching why people affected by Coronavirus do and don’t contact Red Cross for support.

Our team has been spending the last couple of weeks listening to people affected by and responding to Coronavirus. Our aim is to understand why people do and don’t contact the Red Cross. Knowing this we can better design how someone can contact us for support when they urgently need it.

As we work through the discovery stage of this investigation, one aspect we have looked to understand is — What is the public awareness of the Red Cross?

We tackled this question in two ways: a short online survey, along with interviews with people from across the UK with varying insight including refugee support, social work and council members to name a few.

A clear theme that emerged was a very mixed understanding of who we are and what we do. Suggestions of ‘overseas emergency support’, ‘medical aid’ and ‘First aid training’ came up frequently with a little discussion around our emergency services here in the UK. There also seemed to be a mixed response to our visibility since Covid-19. Around 35% of the survey participants were unsure what support they could receive from the Red Cross. The other 65% had varying awareness of our services, with the majority recognising food parcels and prescription drop-offs as an available service.

Word of mouth

One of the most interesting insights when speaking to communities who may be vulnerable or from minority backgrounds was the power of the word of mouth when it came to building awareness. The feeling of trust within communities when sharing information was paramount to people engaging with a service. It was clear that most people hear the name ‘British Red Cross’ and think of a respected and reputable organisation but when diving in further, there was a gap in the knowledge of what services we offer. It is important to flag that some minority groups reported being hesitant to engage with a national service, and would rather seek advice from their community or religious group — particularly for those from BAME backgrounds, those encountering language barrier, or a pending asylum case.

The stigma associated with contacting an external organisation is not limited to these groups. The economic effects of Covid-19 are opening up a potentially new service user. ‘We are having more calls from people we have never offered support to before. Those who have found themselves unexpectedly financially unstable or unable to work due to the crisis are now in need of our assistance’ was an observation made by a Local Council. This user group may be less aware of our presence or feel that asking for our support would damage their pride.

These are really important challenges to overcome as a feeling of ‘lack of accessibility’ as well as an unclear value proposition are large barriers to people using our services when they are in need.

One participant commented they felt they used to know and understand the Red Cross through presentations at school but since leaving education they have much less awareness of the work of the Red Cross. This sentiment is echoed within the long term Red Cross community members as they reflected on having a greater community presence in the UK whilst the Event First aid Service was available as it provided a touchpoint between the general pubic and our volunteers/staff.

In the world of marketing, 74% of consumers identified word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions [Source Ogilvy/Google/TNS]. In the world of charity and humanitarian aid, if this same premise carries forward, there is a significant opportunity to become more accessible across the UK by being more proactively engaged in communities, leading to more people recommending our services.

Ideas for using word of mouth

Some suggestions for building greater community word-of-mouth include:

• Targeted messaging to community leaders to signpost Red Cross services
• Community workshops/outreach days including an overview of services
• Creating a clear and easily sharable value proposition
• School and university presentations

Next steps

We’ve been busy trying to answer other key research questions. Some of which we’ll be blogging about too. Next, we’re pulling together our findings and highlighting the key ones for informing what we do next.