Beware: The Power of the Internet and an Angry Client
By: Mark Winter
PR Daily had a great article today on 5 PR firms that you should not hire. The article itself was a great guide on the key things to look for when deciding the PR partner that is a right fit for your own needs.
One of the points the article addressed was the production of work that contains typos and errors, things that cannot happen in the PR world. There is a reason firms are hired to help companies identify, build and protect brands – expected expertise. Sometimes, unfortunately, the end product does not live up to what was promised in the initial meeting. Often, a client will meet with a senior level team member in order to secure the new business, and within days, the account work is handed over to a less experienced employee. If you are hiring a PR firm, you need to know who will actually be doing the work on your account every day.
One disgruntled client fired his PR firm, Christie Communications, and ended up not just telling the client that the firm’s work was unacceptably bad and riddled with errors and typos, but also the world. The client took his dissatisfaction to the Internet and created a website titled ChristieCommunicationsSucks.
The client told his story of bad service, typos, poor design work and even presented samples of the work to allow the readers to see exactly what Christie Communications produced on his behalf. Even worse, he kept updating his blog to detail his ongoing negative experiences with this firm over the past three years. He posted emails and letters from the CEO that they exchanged while he was fighting to get a refund.
Ouch. I wonder how long http://www.christiecommunicationssucks.com was live before the firm knew.
In a world that can take private issues public in no time at all with the use of social media, client satisfaction and customer service are more important than ever. Make sure you keep that in mind the next time you think about hitting the “send” button. And remember, you never know what’s online about you or your company unless you are monitoring the Web. Once a negative comment is online…it’s there forever.
