It’s a word suggesting a company’s desire to engage with someone… the word ‘relations.’
Rest assured, it seems to suggest, that when you wish to engage, when you need something… a company’s customer relations department can help.
The words ‘media relations’ described one of my roles, during my corporate PR career, of engaging with editors and reporters. When they needed assistance… when they had questions or concerns about our company, its services or products, they could reach out to me and my colleagues, in the media relations department.
That’s what the word ‘relations’ is all about. It’s defined, in the dictionary, as “the relationships that exist between organizations and people.”
Business firms sometimes use the word ‘care,’ instead, calling their customer engagement departments ‘customer care.’
But just how strong, really, is the desire, among companies, to engage with people? I’ve been wondering about that.
Are customers being handled with care, so to speak, when contacting a company’s customer relations department, they’re going nuts, navigating automated menu instructions.
Like me and my family, you probably know the drill. Press 1, for one thing, and 2 for another, and 3, 4, 5, and so on, for other things. And when you’re getting lost and fatigued, trying to keep up with all the instructions, you’ve got to press some number to have the entire menu repeated… when all you really want is a few minutes, on the phone, with an actual person, which often is the one option that’s not on the menu.
Having been in business, I totally get ‘efficiency.’ Automating customer relations with recorded, voice-activated innovations could, very well, be sharpening efficiency… but is it enhancing customer relations, and customer care?
I should include a disclaimer, at this point, in this conversation with you… that my family and I have been experiencing a customer relations adventure, so to speak, that’s finally reaching a conclusion, after several years.
We’d purchased a refrigerator, with what turned out to be a problematic, built-in water dispenser and icemaker. The manufacturer, a firm with the past tense of ‘sing’ in its name, had at one point recalled the water-dispensing/icemaking unit inside the fridge, but we couldn’t recall receiving a recall notification.
So anyway… long story short, the manufacturer did send repair technicians out… every few months, as our fridge kept acting up… which was okay, but each time we had to contact the manufacturer by phone, we had to go through that phone menu drill. You lose track of all the steps, and number options, even when you’re reaching out for assistance every few months, so it’s kind of like starting all over again, each time you’re reaching out.
We kept thinking the manufacturer could have replaced the fridge, considering the cost the company must have been incurring, sending repair people to our house, so repetitively.
But anyway, after the sixth or seventh attempt at getting things to work, the manufacturer suggested that we purchase a new version of their refrigerator, at a discount, and that seemed okay… until, after getting through to actual people in customer relations, some of the communication about the discount offer became rather confusing, and somewhat disjointed at times.
And since my whole thing, throughout my career, and after my career, as well, has revolved around communication, I began thinking… There’s a story, here!
So, here we are.
Long story short… I raised questions with various departments we were being transferred around to, about the company’s approach to communication and customer care. And after that, I tried reaching out to the company’s media relations department, as a journalist, since I’ve been writing guest articles.
Oddly enough, unless I’m missing something, I couldn’t find actual people in media relations to reach out to.
Generally, like when I was in media relations, my name, and my colleague’s names, were noted in our company’s website, with contact information, including our phone numbers and email addresses.
This particular manufacturing company only listed email addresses for various company units.
So, I emailed to one of the email addresses, requesting a few minutes of time with someone in media relations for a brief interview. When there was no initial reply, I emailed again the following day, and again received no response.
Several years ago, an article I’d written, in the Times of San Diego, regarding “The rise of ‘no comment’ from newsmakers,” was mentioned in the business journalism site, Talking Biz News. From what I can tell, so far, trying to get an interview with the refrigerator manufacturer’s media folks, I guess the rise of ‘no comment’ is still rising?
There was a rule of thumb, back when I was in media relations, that failing to get back to reporters reaching out to the media relations staff, often caused reporters to seek information from sources outside the company.
That’s called losing control over the narrative, in PR lingo.
In this instance, with this article of mine, the source of information I’m reaching out to, out of necessity, is… myself.
And by the way, our customer relations adventure finally is reaching a conclusion…
We declined the discount offer, and purchased a refrigerator from another company.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.