Open innovation is not only increasingly attractive, but it can also be an enormously effective means of innovating.  Many would argue however that the scales are weighted too much in favor of the sponsoring company, and too little attention is given to the huge wastage of time, effort and resources by the people who submit entries that are ultimately unsuccessful.

As the sponsor doesn’t pay for that effort, the merits of crowdsourcing from their perspective are clear for all to see, but a recent study highlights the value they can gain from handling the rejection process more humanely.

The study revealed that a shocking 88% of participants in a crowdsourcing project receive no response to their submission.  Not only are they not given any feedback regarding why their submission failed, in many instances they’re not even told their submission has failed to begin with.

Understandably, this is hardly a good way to build relationships with a large network of people who have volunteered their time, energy and insights to submit a solution to your challenge, and the study found that those who were given the cold shoulder were unlikely to engage with the sponsor again in future.  Tellingly, this could be mitigated incredibly easily, and a simple rejection message informing the participant that their submission was unsuccessful was all it took to turn things around.

Let down gently

Such rejections have been well researched in a recruitment context, as employers have waged an ongoing battle between the need to reject large numbers of candidates efficiently while at the same time not burning bridges of people who may be valuable in future.

As with recruitment, when you don’t hear, a vacuum exists for your mind to fill.  Did they receive the submission?  Am I not worth replying to?  This is damaging for a number of reasons, not least because you’re actively dissuading someone from trying to come up with solutions a second or third time.

This can be especially damaging if you’re conducting crowdsourcing over a prolonged period, as it’s unwise to shrink your pool of talent unnecessarily.

Also, it’s a pretty poor way to respond to people who have spent a large amount of uncompensated time, and possibly money, trying to solve a problem that clearly matters to your business.  Most research suggests that people do this because they have a strong interest in either the company or the topic.  Burning that bridge could sever ties not only with a potential advocate, but a potential customer, employee or other stakeholder.

By handling the rejection process more sensitively and respectfully, not only can these things be avoided, but the relationships can often be strengthened.  This is especially so if the rejection includes a clear explanation regarding the reasons for the rejection, with the best responses found to mirror the linguistic style of the submission itself.  This makes sense as it reinforces the connection that prompted the submission in the first place.