Community Engagement and Communications

EQC’s community engagement and communication activity falls into two distinct categories:

• communication between natural disaster events (business as usual activity); and
• communication after a natural disaster event.

In response to the Canterbury earthquakes, EQC undertook a wide range of communications and media campaigns on a proactive basis to give customers and stakeholders the information they required. In that same period, EQC was often in a position where it had to respond reactively to a wide range of issues raised by media, community organisations, and customers.

In hindsight, it is generally accepted that communications were one of the biggest lost opportunities for EQC in relation to the Canterbury earthquake sequence. It is well documented that customers felt they were not receiving timely and understandable information, and this directly contributed to the current perception of EQC in the Canterbury region.

One of the most important lessons from EQC’s communications following the Canterbury earthquakes has been that you can never communicate early enough, or often enough.

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