PR 102 - Are you giving people PR
Headaches?
by Brandi Jasmine
I once saw this letter in a
writer's/pr newsletter called Quality Web Content - it was written by
Rachel
McAlpine, who noticed that her efforts to reach large US companies
for simple permission to reprint their web pages in a book/CD Rom were
going nowhere because of the apparent "glass wall" such
companies put up between themselves and the public.
Her first complaint was that if she
was able to find any mechanism to communicate with these companies, it
was a form and not an actual address. This is a problem for her, as
she uses her email reader as sort of a "digital paper
trail".
A big part of the problem for the PR
people is quite simple. Put your email address on your web site, and
the spammers have it within hours. You get more spam than legitimate
letters. That problem is getting much worse, and it appears that for
the moment even forms do not always protect one from the efforts of
the spammers.
There are also a lot of PR firms that
do not put email addresses or even contact forms on their web sites,
because they don't want to deal with inquiries from their customers
(often when people write big companies it's because they are annoyed).
The PR firm rarely, if ever, has any direct contact with the customer
service side of things. Sometimes they have no direct contact with the
company outside the top executives. They can do nothing with that
email, so they don't put up an address. It would be a simple matter to
send that mail to customer service first - and train them to forward
the legitimate inquiries to the PR department, but no-one thinks of
that for some reason (I don't think it's in the official "MBA
Guide to Good Business Practices").
The second complaint was that they
didn't bother to respond in a timely manner - if at all. We are
talking a dozen highly-recognizable "Fortune 500" companies
here. Come on, people, what kind of message do we want to send to our
customers? She got the message loud and clear all right "Take a
hike!" It's not hard to imagine why she was disgusted.
I told her it was my frank opinion
that the people she was dealing with saw her as a minus in the balance
sheet. She's asking for something and in their minds she's not a
"customer". My problem with this attitude is that some PR
people forget one ticked-off journalist can be a major minus all
right.
I also pointed out that compared to
other cultures, Americans are somewhat ... "twitchy" about
copyrights and reprint rights. They are notoriously hard to deal with
where it comes to these kinds of requests. On top of the attitude to
email, you have the lawyers who are going to go over every byte of
your request and pick it apart for excuses to turn you down - and they
will take their own sweet time about it too.
In comparison, I found in my own
experiences that Canadian companies were eager to do what they could
to help, to make compromises where needed. For example, when I decided
to approach a number of entertainment companies for permissions to
post "fan" or tribute sites, the Royal Canadian Air Farce (www.airfarce.ca)
went out of their way to thank me for my support - with a gift basket
and VIP treatment at their events! Their consideration and kindness to
me will not be forgotten. Nor will the rude, ignorant or dismissive
treatment I received from some entertainment companies south of the
border.
As for permissions - I suggested:
You do not need permission to refer
to on link to their pages on your CD Rom - AND you should have a note
saying "Certain companies did not respond to us, or did not have
the appropriate email contact information displayed on their web
pages. As a result, those pages cannot be presented here because we
were unable to reach their public relations department for the
appropriate permissions. We have placed a link to their pages instead.
Please be aware that these URLs may be moved at any time and that we
are unable to ensure these companies will keep their web pages
current. If you cannot find the linked page, please go to their main
page (e.g. www.xyz.com) to try to locate the information." This
is professional and courteous but makes the point you've done
everything in your power to do the best job. They'll realize you have
to deal with incompetent or intractable people at that company, and
you've make it that company they'll be responding to - not you - if
they can't find what they are seeking.
PR people, take note: There needs to
be an attitude adjustment out there in the world of big business.
These days an angry customer (or a journalist from another country
that you may consider to be insignificant) can reach hundreds if not
thousands of people, with the click of a mouse button. I chose not to
name names - but SHE did in her letter - and every one of them was a
recognizable brand. When she prints her book will she have a handy
copy of your web page - or a notice saying "This jerk of a
company is happy to take your money and mine, but would not respond to
a simple request by a customer or journalist?" ... it's a
question worth considering.
