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Cancer Research UK Community Improves Quality of Life
The “Cancer Chat” community is a friendly, moderated support community for people to talk to others affected by cancer, share experiences, and get support from specialist nurses. One member commented, “I think the nights are the worst, the quiet and stillness can be overwhelming, which is why it’s so great to have this forum.”
Results
45%
Growth in Cancer Chat membership in the community’s first year of use.
79%
Amount of users who find Cancer Chat easy to use.
40%
Reduction in members needing to email a moderator for help.
About Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world’s leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research, influence, and information. The registered charity carries out scientific research to help prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer.
Opportunity
CRUK wants to be there for people whenever – and wherever – they need the charity. “Cancer Chat” is CRUK’s fully moderated forum where people can talk to others affected by cancer, share experiences, and get support. Cancer Chat is free to join and available 24 hours a day.
The forum was previously based on a platform that over time had become difficult to change, unintuitive, and lacked the flexibility to lead the charity to an innovative future. Moreover, the team managing the community could not moderate above certain volumes of traffic – inhibiting community growth.
Sarah Wilson, Community Manager, CRUK comments, “Our aim is to be the UK’s best-in-class digital community for all those affected by cancer, whatever their situation. Where personalized information can be accessed simply, support can be found and maintained easily, and reassurance can be found quickly, improving the quality of life for all those that use it.”
“It is a friendly and engaging ‘village hall’ for people to talk to others affected by cancer or ask a question to a team of cancer specialist nurses.”
Solution
Cancer Chat, powered by Verint Community, is a safe place to connect with others affected by cancer, share personal situations, and receive guidance. A team of moderators are on duty 365 days a year and read every post to ensure the information given is always safe, legal, and supportive. Cancer Chat provides peer-to-peer support – people can share their thoughts with others at midnight, for example, or talk to complete strangers outside of their family.
The implementation was a collaborative effort between Verint partners 3Sides and 4 Roads while Verint Professional Services focused on the migration of users, interactions, and content into Verint Community. 3Sides orchestrated the delivery of the total program and created the custom Cancer Chat experience. CRUK engaged 4 Roads for their expert custom development to create a bolt-on advanced moderation module.
This module enables moderators to review content more efficiently. They can allocate tickets to other moderators and make notes against tickets so other moderators can understand when an action has been taken.
Cancer Chat is a secure public forum. When people join, they can remain anonymous. When they register, CRUK only collects their username, email address, password (encrypted), and IP address.
Benefits
Cancer Chat has been a huge source of comfort to those with cancer. Terminally ill members used the forum daily to document their last weeks or months, to share memories, or create friendships with people they had never met, but who gave them what they needed at the end of their journey.
“Tony”, for example, continued posting on Cancer Chat from the hospice where he died. His sister then created an account and continued using the forum to cope with Tony’s death, engaging with members who shared their own memories. Ten years after his death, CRUK provided Tony’s daughter with her Dad’s old threads. She told CRUK that reading them made her feel much closer to him.
Many members use Cancer Chat to meet others who understand what they are going through and to share tips, get advice, and sometimes just to laugh about life. The community also inspires people to get involved with the charity in other ways and either take part in fundraising activities, volunteer, or donate.
Other results from the community include:
- User growth: Cancer Chat membership grew by 45% in its first year of use.
- Cost-effective: CRUK saved £75,000 annually through reduced maintenance, SaaS solution, moving from another vendor, and usability.
- Intuitive: Non-IT literate people can begin engaging immediately. In a study, 79% said they found Cancer Chat easy to use.
- Engaging: In the last 18 months, 160+ items of feedback include comments such as this one: “This really is such a wonderful chat forum, really helps me feel less alone.”
- Inclusive: Reaches more difficult-to-access personas; for example, people with rare cancers or experiencing language barriers.
- Productive: There has been a 40% drop in members needing to email a moderator for help.
- Forum promotes wider engagement: 90% remained on the forum and did not visit another page during the session. 1.5% went to the “Make a Donation” page.
- Seamless go-live: The migration was seamless. Within minutes of go-live, people were posting as before, and 80% of people joining posted straight away.
- Secure: Multiple authentication control layers regulate behavior and other processes.
- Innovation: Flexibility to trial new features and services, turning them on and off at will.
“The site is not about growing the community,” says Wilson. “If people leave the forum, it is seen as a positive, since they aren’t talking about cancer. It is a friendly and engaging ‘village hall’ for people to talk to others affected by cancer or ask a question to a team of cancer specialist nurses.”
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