Stakeholder CRM
Manage every contact, track every interaction, and run targeted email campaigns — all from the same platform you use to run your consultations. No separate CRM tool, no data silos, no switching between systems. ConsultOnline’s built-in stakeholder CRM keeps your community engagement organised from first contact to final report.
Complete Stakeholder Profiles
Every stakeholder gets a detailed profile with contact information, organisation, role, interests, and a full engagement history. See at a glance which consultations they have participated in, what responses they submitted, which events they attended, and every email they have received — all in one place.
Email Campaign Management
Send targeted email campaigns to segmented stakeholder lists directly from ConsultOnline. Track open rates, click-through rates, and bounces. Use built-in templates for consultation launches, reminders, updates, and thank-you messages — ensuring consistent, professional communication at every stage.
Smart Segmentation
Segment stakeholders by interest area, geographic location, engagement level, organisation type, or any custom tag you define. Build targeted lists for specific consultations, filter by who has or has not responded, and ensure the right people receive the right communications at the right time.
The Engagement Advantage
Why stakeholder management matters for consultations
Planning consultations are not one-off events. They sit within a web of ongoing relationships — with parish councils, resident groups, local businesses, statutory consultees, elected members, and individual community members who care deeply about what happens in their area. Yet most consultation teams manage these relationships in spreadsheets, shared inboxes, and people’s heads. When a team member leaves, institutional knowledge walks out the door. When a new consultation launches, the team starts from scratch building contact lists. A purpose-built stakeholder CRM changes this entirely by making every relationship visible, searchable, and actionable.
Effective consultation stakeholder management is also an accountability requirement. Statements of Community Involvement (SCIs), planning inspectors, and judicial review proceedings all scrutinise who was consulted, how they were contacted, and whether their input was properly considered. A dedicated CRM creates an auditable trail of every communication, every response, and every engagement touchpoint — evidence that is difficult to reconstruct from scattered emails and ad hoc spreadsheets. This audit trail protects both the consultation team and the integrity of the planning process.
Beyond compliance, stakeholder tracking unlocks genuine engagement improvements. When you can see that a resident group responded to your last three consultations but has not yet engaged with the current one, you can send a targeted reminder. When you know which statutory consultees have outstanding responses, you can follow up before the deadline. When you can segment your contacts by interest area and send tailored updates rather than generic bulk emails, response rates climb and stakeholders feel genuinely heard. The CRM becomes not just a record-keeping tool but an engine for better, more inclusive consultation.
How It Works
From contacts to campaigns in three steps
Build Your Contact Database
Import existing stakeholder lists from CSV files or add contacts individually. ConsultOnline automatically creates stakeholder profiles for anyone who responds to your consultations, so your database grows organically as you engage. Tag contacts with interests, locations, organisation types, and custom fields to build a rich, searchable directory.
Segment & Target
Create stakeholder segments based on any combination of criteria — location, interest area, engagement history, organisation type, or response status. Save segments as reusable lists for future consultations. When you launch a new project, your relevant stakeholders are already identified and ready to contact.
Engage & Track
Send email campaigns using built-in templates, track opens and clicks in real time, and monitor which stakeholders have responded to your consultation. Every interaction is logged automatically on the stakeholder’s profile, building a complete engagement timeline that your whole team can access.
Use Cases
CRM tools for every stage of consultation
From early stakeholder identification through to post-consultation reporting, the CRM supports your team at every step of the engagement process.
Stakeholder Identification
At the start of any consultation, you need to know who to engage. Use the CRM to search your existing database by location, interest, or past consultation involvement. Identify statutory consultees, community groups, and individuals who should be notified. Import new contacts from parish council lists, planning registers, or community directories.
Consultation Launch Campaigns
When your consultation goes live, send targeted launch emails to relevant stakeholder segments. Use the built-in template editor to craft professional announcements with your branding, consultation details, and direct links to the microsite. Track who opens the email and who clicks through, so you know your launch has landed.
Deadline Reminders
As the consultation deadline approaches, filter your stakeholder list to find contacts who have not yet responded and send them a targeted reminder. This simple step consistently lifts response rates. You can also send reminders to statutory consultees whose responses are required for the planning process.
Engagement Monitoring
Track engagement levels in real time during an active consultation. See which stakeholder segments are responding, which are silent, and where you might need additional outreach. The CRM integrates with consultation analytics so you can cross-reference response data with stakeholder profiles.
SCI Report Evidence
Export stakeholder engagement data for inclusion in Statements of Community Involvement. The CRM provides a complete, auditable record of who was contacted, when, through which channel, and whether they responded — exactly the evidence planning inspectors and local authority officers need.
Cross-Consultation Tracking
Stakeholders rarely engage with just one consultation. The CRM tracks involvement across all your projects, building a longitudinal picture of each contact’s engagement. See which residents are consistently active, which organisations engage on specific topics, and how community sentiment evolves over time.
See stakeholder management in action
Book a short demo and we will show you how the built-in CRM transforms the way your team manages consultation stakeholders — from contact import to campaign tracking.
Capabilities
Complete stakeholder management toolkit
Everything you need to manage consultation stakeholders, from initial contact capture to post-consultation reporting and GDPR compliance.
Feature Deep Dive
CRM features in detail
A closer look at the tools that make ConsultOnline’s stakeholder CRM the most effective way to manage community engagement relationships.
Stakeholder Profiles
Each contact has a comprehensive profile page showing their name, email, organisation, role, location, custom tags, and a complete activity timeline. The timeline automatically logs consultation responses, email interactions, event attendance, and any notes your team adds. Open a profile and see the full history of your relationship with that stakeholder at a glance.
Email Campaigns
Build and send professional email campaigns without leaving ConsultOnline. The template editor supports your organisation’s branding, merge fields for personalisation, and direct links to your consultation microsites. After sending, track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and bounces in real time. Every email interaction is automatically logged on the recipient’s stakeholder profile.
Smart Segments
Create dynamic segments that automatically update based on your criteria. Define a segment for “stakeholders within 500m of Site X who have not responded” or “parish councils that engaged with the last Local Plan consultation.” Segments power targeted email campaigns, ensure no one is missed, and help you understand your stakeholder landscape at a strategic level.
Activity Timeline
Every stakeholder profile includes a chronological timeline of all interactions. See when they were first added, which emails they received and opened, which consultations they responded to, which events they attended, and any notes your team has recorded. The timeline is fully filterable by activity type and date range, making it easy to find specific interactions.
Communication Templates
Maintain consistent, professional messaging with reusable email templates. ConsultOnline includes starter templates for common consultation communications — launch announcements, reminders, thank-you messages, and outcome updates. Customise them with your branding and tone of voice, save them as organisation templates, and ensure every team member sends communications that meet your standards.
Export & Reporting
Export stakeholder data as CSV for SCI reports, planning statements, and committee presentations. Generate engagement summaries that show who was contacted, through which channels, and whether they responded. The export includes full contact details, engagement history, consent status, and response records — everything you need for robust consultation audit trails.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Ready to manage your stakeholders properly?
Stop juggling spreadsheets and shared inboxes. ConsultOnline’s built-in CRM gives your team a single source of truth for every stakeholder relationship — with the email tools, segmentation, and audit trails that consultation teams actually need.
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