752245Opinioneer EnhancementsClosedVouchersInnovate UK"People’s opinions are not only important but vital to an organisation that wants to improve its quality of service, increase business, raise levels of staff and customer satisfaction and engage people in the process long term. Traditional approaches are expensive and don’t work effectively Trying to get views via questionnaires, on-line surveys and interviews, even with incentives like prize draws, produces low returns. People just don’t have the time to respond to online surveys or be stopped in the street and they also have doubts about anonymity and are therefore reluctant to give honest and open views. They don’t hear about the results or what has been done in response to those results which makes them reluctant to help in future surveys. Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter offer ways of gathering views, but are not anonymous and not frequently used by many people. The Solution Opinioneer is an engagement tool that utilises a smart phone/ tablet ‘app’, designed to increase the number of people engaged by gaining opinions easily, quickly, cheaply and frequently. The app is free to those from whom views are sought and easily downloaded from a link. The app is created uniquely for the organisation which sends out the link by email to those they wish to engage with but the user retains their anonymity throughout. Questions are sent periodically and each question takes less than a few seconds to answer. Uniquely, when questions ‘close’ after say 24 hours, all users with the app receive the overall % results, and then they all get ‘feedback’ as to what the organisation intends to do as a result of the views expressed. By acting effectively to the opinions expressed the organisation encourages an ongoing process of improvement and a rolling process of engagement, benefitting not only the organisation, but also the customers, service users and staff."