Good Customer Service is Good PR

The bigger some companies are the more obstacles they invent to prevent customers from being able to contact them.  It just doesn’t make PR sense.

Sometimes things go wrong and we just have to face up to that fact.  However, ‘gone wrong’ needn’t mean ‘bad PR’.  Last weekend my wife decided to upgrade her mobile phone.  Having researched deals on the web we set off to the local store of one of the big providers.

Somewhere in the process of the shop assistant feeding into the computer the copious quantities of data needed to purchase a high-end mobile phone these days, something went wrong.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t correctable at the shop terminal.  The computer had said ‘no’ and that was that.  “Well what has gone wrong?” we asked.  “It doesn’t say – it just says no,” retorted the shop assistant.

Feeling that we had been thrust into an episode of Little Britain, I asked, “Can you not phone the main office to find out why the computer says no?”  “Erm, no, sorry,” said the assistant.  “Why not?” I asked.  “We don’t have a phone number, but you can write to this address.”

Unhappy at being told no by a computer, I Googled the address and found a telephone number.  I phoned and spoke to a real person, who assured me they would look into the problem and call me back the day after.  And they did!  And they sorted the problem, apologised for the inconvenience and offered a discount by way of compensation.  All good PR.

Solving this particular problem has come at cost.  It cost time – myself, the shop assistant and others at the company.  It has diminished the reputation of the company to me and everyone I will relate the story too who maybe thinking of purchasing a mobile phone.  It cost the company a discount (reducing their profit on the sale).  No doubt, other customers would have just walked away – leading to unnecessary lost sales.

Why put customers to such trouble?  In this internet age we are going to find your number if we want to anyway.  If we want to make trouble for you, we will do.  Take note big companies – you can’t hide in ivory towers any longer.  The essence of PR needs to pervade through your organisation – top to bottom, left to right.  Having a few fire fighters on staff is not enough anymore.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Electronic Media vs Print Media

Print media maybe in decline, however, is targeting an international market the way for quality journals to succeed?  I found the following article by Roy Greenslade in the on-line Guardian fascinating: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/27/andrew-rashbass-economist-group-interview.  The article is based on an interview with Andrew Rashbass chief executive of The Economist Group.

It seems that the print version of The Economist just grows and grows.  Rashbass puts this down to the fact that the publication is in English – the default business language.  Consequently if you are in business and want an informed international view of what is happening in the world of business then you will turn to The Economist.  The numbers are impressive, 1.4 million weekly global sales with 844,000 of these in the USA.  Give people quality – sound research, meaningful analysis and insightful comment and they will want to read it.

Before launching the web version of The Economist they commissioned market research into how people consume print and e-media.   It seems that print readers are committed to a good read – to use Rashbass’s metaphor they are set for a gourmet meal.  Web browsers on the other hand are snackers and are looking for a lighter and more interactive experience – hence the different treatment between the print and web versions of The Economist.

E-readers have changed things yet again.   The Economist app is available for Kindle, iPhone and iPad, providing a screen replica of the print edition as well as an interesting audio option.  Recognition that the e-readers are more like their print reading cousins.  Rashbass observes that as more people become e-reader users this will eventually cannibalise print sales, but for the moment, this is a new audience with a different demographic.   Overall his view is that new media are additive and will in the end only increase Economist readership – good news for him and all media.

So what’s the upshot for PR?   Well I think it is a useful and healthy signpost of where we are going.  It says that there is a serious media consuming public who want good journalism and are prepared to pay for it.  It says that content is more important than the medium – but that different media have different modes-of-use and need appropriate writing.  It also suggests that magazines with UK only focus for their print circulation could be missing an opportunity to expand into overseas markets where English is commonly spoken.

Kevin Ainsworth, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Manage Your Digital Media: A Good Company Archive Could Save You ££££s

It has never been easier to record company events, manufacturing processes and site operations.  The technology is ever cheaper, more effective and simpler to use.  Digital cameras, camcorders and even mobile phones provide the opportunities to add material to your company archive.  A £50 scanner will turn older negatives/transparencies and images back into usable material for web sites, brochures, blogs and more.

Even amateur photo and video material should be archived for company use.

*Image: Cudis CPN Circuit Breakers and Consumer Units

To make the best of this resource nominate someone as the company archivist.  Get your digital resource organised, categorised and make it available to your staff, PR company, design and web company.  Computer storage has never been cheaper or more shareable than today.  Also, invest in some acid free storage and archive boxes to store and protect valuable original items once they have been digitised.  Keep them in a dry, room temperature, environment away from any potential hazards like water pipes.

When you do use professionals to generate photographic or video content, negotiate copyright with them and ensure that you can add the material to your archive free of any further fees.  If any older material has copyright doubts, then go back to source, verify and get written permission to use them so you don’t get in any hot water later.

If you are going to try your hand at digital photography – and it is worth a go – then our PR checklist – Digital Photography – Take Better PR Pictures for your Business, is a good starting point.  There are plenty of good books and accessible magazines available to help sharpen skills.

Remember though, and this is vitally important, don’t practice in situations where only a professional will do!  Know your limitations – both skill and equipment – and hire a Pro when needed.  They are worth every penny.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Don’t Believe Your Own PR Hype!

The demise of Colonel Gaddafi and Sadam Hussain before him and even Nicolae Ceaușescu before him are stark illustrations of the dangers of believing one’s own over-egged PR machine.  Despite the despicable crimes these dictators perpetrated on their own peoples, it seems they shared a common, but mistaken, belief that the majority truly ‘loved’ them.

Like much of marketing, PR is often engaged in promoting only the positive.  In extreme cases, this may take the form of crisis management – a process of minimising the negative.  The trouble with this process is it can eventually lead to a self-deception where you don’t realize that your public has moved on.

An illustration of this in the business world is perhaps Microsoft vs Apple.  Microsoft has done its best over several decades, with a good degree of success, to control the PC desktop experience.  Stamping out competitors or buying them up.  Of course it could be argued that this was no bad thing.  After all, uniformity and compatibility helped spread PCs from niche to mainstream.

However, Microsoft’s belief that everyone was ‘locked in’ to their way of thinking has led to complacency and ultimately customer resentment.  Along comes Apple with innovative products to change the game – offering the disenfranchised customers true choice and they are voting with their feet.

It can not be said that Microsoft does not employ exceptional talent, that it does not have vast financial resources and that it is not well managed.  So how it did it fall so far behind the curve so quickly.  My answer is – it believed its own hype.  It ignored the mass of public feedback that came from court cases sparked by the ‘browser wars’.  It ignored the anger over the way software is licensed and the difficulties users faced when having to reinstall.  It ignored the disappointment users felt when software quality was well below par, lacked innovation, but still commanded a high price.

Ironically, Apple is much more controlling and draconian than Microsoft. However, Microsoft failed to address negative issues because it filed them under ‘crisis management’ when they arose and instructed its PR machine to minimise the ‘negative’.  This is self deception.

So what is the moral of the tale?  Don’t just think of PR as a means of selling the ‘positive’ or ‘managing’ a crisis.  Embrace criticism, acknowledge failure and change to meet customer expectations.  Then positive PR will occur naturally.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Time to Make Manufacturing the Centre of the Economy

We have seen mixed messages over the last few months.  Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) investing in a new engine plant is good news.  BAe losing 3000 skilled jobs is devastating news.  The picture for manufacturing is confused.

Demand for JLR products seems to be driven by exports – not to traditional markets like America and Europe but to the new economies.  Lack of demand at BAe is directly attributable to the government slashing orders and contracts.

Against this background we have global financial turmoil.  However, yet again governments seem to think printing loads of cash and giving it to the same short-term thinking bankers that have pulled us to this point will save the day.

Is it not time to take a different tack?  Why not put the money straight into the hands of those manufacturing businesses that are crying out for investment?  After all bankers create nothing except ever more complex charades that even they do not understand.  Give the money to those that create the products for now and the future, the jobs for today’s and tomorrow’s generations and that help secure the wellbeing of young and old alike.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Are Websites Killing Themselves with Web Adverts?

When I first started working with web sites in the late 90’s it was vital to keep pages short, zero animation, images small and highly compressed.  Back then, the tools to create web pages, browser sophistication and the means of connection (dial-up modem) left little choice but to conform.

Now web sites boast multi-media rich interactive environments.  Thanks to ever-increasing broadband speeds, site load times are generally fast too.  However, I now find that many sites I want to use are failing to load pages fully in anything like a reasonable time frame or stall completely.  This is one of the greatest web sins.  I don’t want to name and shame.  In fact, the problem is not with the main content of what are well designed and resourced web sites.  No.  It is the hosted advertisements!

I find many web pages stall while they try to fetch and display an over complicated advert.  I assume these adverts are being served to the web page from a different server (probably a specialised ad-server) than the one hosting the web site.  This is doubly annoying because such adverts prevent you from seeing the content and, in all probability, you will have absolutely zero interest in the advert that might eventually appear.

Considering the cost in developing a good web site and the expenditure on marketing the content to attract web site traffic, I simply don’t understand why the web site owners then throw it all away.  I am not talking about web sites that exist only to serve adverts here, but about those sites whose objective is to sell.  These adverts are driving valuable potential customers away because pages fail to load properly.

Let me say again ‘irrelevant adverts’.  This may upset those that sell web advertising as they like to make great play of the fact that adverts can be tailored to a users search profile.  I don’t disagree.  The technology permits that.  However, I believe it suffers a fundamental flaw and I will give a personal example.

I have been renovating my back garden.  This has involved the purchase of sand, aggregate, cement and top soil along with many other items.  Yes I searched the web for good deals.  Not once did I click on an advertisement.  I made my purchase decisions based on the quality of web sites, bricks and mortar address, customer feedback and so on.  Incidentally, not always the cheapest site won.  For weeks after, having made these purchases, I was being served advertisements for sand, cement, aggregate and so on.  Proving the technology works at least.  However, I had already purchased the stuff – I wasn’t going to buy again, no matter how many adverts were served.  The same would have been true if I had bought a car, computer, washing machine and so on.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against web advertising.  I have looked into hosting some form of advertising on our company web sites, but I never find the marginal income to be attractive enough to risk slowing down or causing pages to fail loading.  Furthermore, I don’t like how they compromise page design, adding to screen clutter and potentially confusing the visitor.

I appeal to web site owners; don’t sacrifice your key web site objective to sell, in order to raise marginal revenue from hosting irrelevant advertisements.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Don’t Make Customers Climb Clumsy Web Walls

I have just been through an exercise to cost some packshot photography – the most basic form of commercial photography.  I wanted to work quickly because I had a scheduled call with a PR client and I wanted to present them with a range of photography options and a guide to cost.

Packshot photography is what it says, a straightforward picture of a product against a white background.  With packshot the buyer priorities are competence, price and quick turnaround.  It is very cost effective where simple product catalogues are required.

There are scores of packshot companies listed on Google.  Some have no-nonsense web sites with basic information, notes explaining technical terms, a few well chosen examples to show the range of their work and simple pricing tables.  Others are less straightforward.  These tend to confuse packshot with creative photography.

With creative, the criteria are much more complex.  If I am looking for creativity then a gallery of work is the best way to showcase capability, but if I am looking for basic packshots then the last thing I want to see are sprawling showreels of pictures before I get to the information that I want.

This brings me to my point.  Web owners and designers need to understand buyer needs and behaviour.  Web sites need to deliver quickly and they need to do so without barriers or effort on the part of the user.   If you need to gather information in order to give a quotation then ask for the minimum details – don’t make the potential buyer complete a multi-question form as did one of the sites I reviewed.

See some of my simple tips that will help keep your buyers happy and coming back for more on the Free PR Advice web site at:  http://www.free-pr-advice.co.uk/websiteswork.htm

Kevin Ainsworth, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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Hacked off with Phone Hacking by Old Hacks?

The media loves nothing more than a story about the media!  If it is not the BBC moving to sunny Salford, it’s the Murdoch evil media empire trying to listen in on our private mobile phone messages.  Real wars rage on, the financial crisis deepens and famine again stalks parts of Africa.

Much of the repetitive comment tells us nothing new.  Over and over the headlines go.  A plate of shaving foam inexpertly delivered becomes the dominant diversion for a short while.  The truth is, sadly, that we will never get the truth.  Why?  Well the kind of ‘old school’ media barons, typified by Mr Murdoch, only ever aimed to deliver their heavily biased opinions dressed as news.  To sell sufficient quantities of newspapers, popular entertainment and voyeurism became the easy vehicles.

I often find it is best to ignore the breaking news and I prefer to Google for more in-depth information from multiple sources, rather than rely on the traditional news outlets.  There is something to be said for allowing skilled journalists, and thankfully they still exist, time to compile more interesting, balanced and compelling reports.  One great source for this is Time magazine.  It may be old news by time you read it in the print magazine – but it is certainly well produced.

Time Magazine - High Quality Journalism

Of course every writer has a bias, an objective in mind, an impression they want to leave on the reader.  However, many of today’s newspapers have clearly strayed beyond the boundaries of common sense and decency and have essentially undermined themselves.

Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations

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