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Ryan Block’s cringe-worthy recording of his call with a Comcast customer service representative had been played almost times

Comcast’s Teachable Moment in Customer Service

Today’s customer service extends far beyond just the one-to-one relationship businesses have with their customers.

 
20+ years ago when I was being trained for a retail job at the mall (Sock Wear Consultant at Boston Socks) we were warned that happy customers will tell three friends but angry customers will tell dozens. Now angry customers can tell hundreds or thousands with a few key strokes. When combined with entertaining or aggravating images, videos or recordings, those complaints can go viral because they resonate with a common experience.

We experienced our own frustrations with Comcast when we opened our first AM:PM PR office in 2010. We couldn’t get anyone to talk with us at Comcast until we posted about our experience on Twitter. We got a call the same day and our issue was resolved by the following week.

Comcast appeared to handle this recent public customer service embarrassment well by:
  1. Taking responsibility;
  2. Apologizing; and
  3. Taking steps to get it fixed.

"We are very embarrassed... The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable." - Comcast

Time will tell how far Comcast will go to actually fix the problem. Pay policies at Comcast are coming to light that show the incensed employee on the recording is likely one of many and a symptom of a much larger customer service issue at Comcast. No one is surprised.

am:pm pr tips

Comcast’s teachable moment demonstrates that brand damage can be substantial from one small incident involving a single employee in a large organization. Every customer interaction is an opportunity and a vulnerability. Customers want attention, honesty and efficiency. As long as you abide by those guiding principles, your reputation is protected.

Comcast and every business with customer service should assume every customer has thousands of social media connections and any interaction is being recorded. Today’s customers have the power and are enacting change – even in monolithic organizations. I like this trend. I know I’m inspired to hit “record” more often. I wish I thought to when going back and forth with a relentless car salesman last week…

Immigration reform is good for the economy.

The economic case for immigration reform

– by Bill MacKenzie

“It’s the economy, stupid,” a strategist famously stated in Bill Clinton’s successful campaign for the presidency in 1996. That’s still true today when making the case for comprehensive federal immigration reform that would cover both legal and undocumented immigrants in Hillsboro.

A more practical guest-worker program would ensure a dependable supply of labor for Hillsboro’s agricultural industry, which now struggles with a costly and unwieldy federal program allowing foreign nationals in for temporary or seasonal agricultural work.

It’s not just farmers and nursery operators who would benefit from an overhaul of the immigration system. Revision of federal laws that unnecessarily restrain the hiring of foreign nationals would also aid Hillsboro’s cluster of technology companies.

Local tech companies use what’s called the H-1B visa program to employ foreign nationals in specialty occupations — such as scientists, engineers or computer programmers — that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields.

Lisa Malloy, an Intel spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., says H-1B workers have consistently represented about 6 percent of the U.S. work force at Intel, which has regularly been one of the top U.S.-based companies using the visas.

Typically, Malloy says, Intel’s H1-B visa holders have graduated from a U.S. university with an advanced degree in science, engineering or math, and many work as component designers, process engineers and software engineers. Comprehensive federal legislation that would remove the arbitrary cap on the number of H-1B visas each year and allow visas to reflect the U.S. economy and what businesses need would be welcomed by Intel and Hillsboro’s other tech companies.

Allowing talented foreign nationals who get advanced degrees at U.S. universities to stay in the United States, rather than sending them (and their talents) packing after graduation, would also make sense.

The same holds true for foreign-born founders of U.S. start-up companies in the U.S. It would be far better for these economy-boosters to have the option of becoming U.S. citizens, and potentially building a business here, rather than pulling up stakes and nurturing their dreams elsewhere. President Obama had it right when he said in January, “Right now, in (an American classroom) there’s a student wrestling with how to turn their big idea — their Intel or Instagram — into a big business. We’re giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we’re going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in China or India or Mexico or someplace else. That’s not how you grow new industries in America. That’s how you give new industries to our competitors.”

These immigrants are already boosting Hillsboro’s healthy economy and stand to strengthen it even more if they are brought out of the shadows. They’re working in farmers’ fields, nurseries, restaurants, hotels and other businesses, large and small.

They’re starting new companies. They’re buying and renting homes. In addition to supplying labor, they’re adding to the local demand for products and services.

Making it so the undocumented immigrants already here can live and work here legally would bring an even bigger economic payoff.

Comprehensive immigration reform that allowed all of Hillsboro’s immigrants to come out into the open would pull them out of the underground economy, make it much less likely they will be paid off the books, generate more taxes and allow them to play a more vigorous role in Hillsboro’s economy.

It is also in our best interest to educate the children of undocumented immigrants so they can contribute more to the city’s economy. As Edward Glaeser of Harvard has amply illustrated, cities with educated and skilled populations will achieve more. On the flip side, cities burdened with ill-educated, low-skill populations will struggle.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in 2011 that the United States is the only country where education attainment levels of people entering the labor market (25-34 year-olds) don’t exceed the levels of those about to leave the labor market (55-64 year-olds).

The same holds true for Oregon, where the older generation is more educated than the young. In a globally competitive economic environment, Hillsboro’s economy, and Oregon’s, will pay a heavy price if we fail to educate the children of all immigrants to their maximum potential.

Bill MacKenzie is a former congressional staff member, reporter and communications manager for a Hillsboro company.

*First appeared in the Hillsboro Tribune.
Don't bury your head in the sand. Be prepared for any scenario.

How To Deal With Bad PR

– AM:PM PR Guest Post

Sometimes things don’t always go to plan though and you get media attention for all the wrong reasons. Here’s how To deal with bad PR.

I have worked for a number of companies that have been very high profile for all the wrong reasons. The worst thing you can do when things go wrong is bury your head in the sand. Also, responding to a question with: “no comment!” makes you sound guilty straight away.

You need to be prepared. Develop a crisis/issues management plan. Think through every possible scenario and develop specific plans, messages and protocols for each. Doing this will make you feel a little more confident when a crisis does happen at 4pm on a Friday and media start calling asking for statements ASAP.

Include protocols for responding to media requests in your plan. Whoever takes calls from reporters should be writing down all the questions so the communications team can craft solid responses.

Often reporters will accept responses/statements via email. If they do, this is the way to go. It eliminates risks of saying too much. If you are asked to call the journalist back then, unless you know the journalist well, don’t go off on a tangent in your discussion. Keep it to the agreed points and don’t add any personal comment or feelings. The old adage about, “nothing being off the record” is very true.

A few more tips when preparing for the worst:

am:pm pr tips

        1. Be truthful and hold your hands up if it is an obvious mistake.
        2. Don’t try and cover things up un-necessarily
        3. Remain calm and definitely don’t get angry
        4. Make statements clear and short
        5. When all has settled down, ask for feedback from the media

 

Peter Morrissey - friend and mentor

Missing a mentor today – Peter Morrissey remembered

A good friend and mentor died August 3. His passing reminds me again of how we’re formed by the people we admire.

I first met Peter Morrissey when our firm joined an international network of independent public relations agencies, Pinnacle Worldwide. Peter owned a firm in Boston that specialized in corporate reputation management and crisis communications.

It was easy to see why corporate executives trusted Peter. He was honest, whip smart and direct. He also was a teacher. He shared stories to illustrate lessons. And like a good Irishman, he had great stories to tell.

Among Peter’s corporate clients was Johnson & Johnson. He counseled the company and its McNeil Pharmaceuticals subsidiary when poison introduced into its Tylenol capsules killed seven Chicago-area residents in 1982. It’s now a classic case study in PR classes on crisis communications.

In addition to running his successful firm, Peter was the consummate good citizen. He taught at Boston University, was active in numerous community groups and served on the board of Boston Athletic Association, sponsors of the Boston Marathon.

I remember him most for what I learned listening to him. I suppose that’s why I enjoyed reading Rate Your Professor comments from students he taught at Boston University.

“Morrissey’s real-world experience as CEO of a highly successful PR firm makes his class probably the most useful I’ve taken at BU.“

“Professor Morrissey’s class was a great class. He brings his real-world experience of owning his own PR firm and working with big name clients to the class. Morrissey’s work in crisis communication especially is a case study for every intro to PR class everywhere.”

“I LOVE PROFESSOR MORRISSEY! If you want to go into PR, take as many of Morrissey’s classes as you can. Work hard, talk to him outside of class, and he will help you in your job search way more than Career Services ever could.”

Peter was the same way with his professional colleagues. He would help you any way he could. Mostly he helped me remember that, at its core, our profession is about serving our communities with integrity, honest communications and a commitment to do what’s right.

Peter taught that by how he lived.

bundling PR services

Rethinking how we sell our PR services

marketing agency blueprint

As AM:PM PR approaches its second birthday, we’re changing how we sell our services. We’ve packaged services for clients – creating a prix fixe menu of options rather than the usual ala carte list.

PR services
We think bundling PR services and pricing them clearly will make it easier for clients to understand what they’re buying. It also recognizes how different the practice of public relations has become in the 24/7, constantly connected world we live in today.

Historically agencies based their pricing on billable hourly rates, much like lawyers and other professionals. Clients that have little experience using public relations agencies struggle to understand why services are billed hourly. Those with more experience may understand billable hours, but many don’t connect hours billed with results achieved.

The truth is that not every hour we work produces the same benefit for clients.

Over the Holidays, I read a book (The Marketing Agency Blueprint) and shared it with my colleagues. It triggered our effort to rethink how we price what we do so it makes more sense to our clients – and to us.

 

service bundling

Much like Progressive, we think bundling our services together might help us better serve our clients’ needs.

“The traditional billable-hour system is tied exclusively to outputs, not outcomes, and assumes that all agency activities … are of equal value,” declared Paul Roetzer, the book’s author and founder/CEO of PR 20/20 in Cleveland.

Today’s communications landscape has radically changed the contents of our PR toolkit. It requires us to be full-time listeners, even for our smallest clients. In the digital world, opportunities and risks don’t wait patiently for open times in our schedules.

Our ability to help a client requires a high level of trust in us, as communicators and strategists. Trust takes time to build. Our service packages anticipate that we will work with the client for a minimum of six months. It’s a step away from casual dating. It signals our priority is on building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

We’re eager to talk about these packages with prospective clients, and learn from them whether this new format helps them better understand what they will get in working with us. Like everything in our business, the packages are subject to change. Our hope is that they will form the foundation for some great relationships.

Twitter sliced

Twitter becoming critical tool for crisis communications

by Camrick Clark

As any firefighter will tell you, the best way to put out a fire is to prevent it. But when something does catch on fire, a quick first response can help keep things from going up in flames.

Using Twitter for crisis communications is fast becoming a critical component in any company’s strategy. Twitter is as much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown crisis as it is about communicating quickly to key stakeholders and the public once a crisis has happened.

twitter image blue

Crisis communication is a public relations activity that, with careful planning, rarely needs to be implemented. Still, it’s very important to have a plan in place when an emergency rears its ugly head. When a product fails, an accident occurs, financial crisis arises or natural disasters happen, whatever the case may be, crisis communication plans keep the peace and give direction to chaos.

Social media has changed the landscape for the development of crises and offers a critical communications channel to address and abate a crisis. Social media can blow up a situation in a matter of minutes. When a story breaks, people are actively looking for answers, and more people than ever are turning to Twitter for those answers.

As in all business communications, Twitter needs to be part of a broader strategy, and one of a variety of channels you use to listen and share with your employees, customers, clients, and industry. This is true both when it comes to prevention and when it is time to react.

How to use twitter for crisis communications:

  1. Educate – Bring yourself and your staff up to speed on how Twitter works and the social norms of the platform.
  2. Plan – What will you do when something bad happens? Identify and plan for crises you can foresee, and those you’d never expect. Think about thinks that could happen to you – disasters, etc., and crises that are self-inflicted – product recalls, hazardous materials spills, etc. Who will be the one to speak on behalf of your company? Answer these questions and more by creating a crisis communications plan.
  3. Listen – Good communicators are always good listeners first. In other words, you won’t know what’s happening unless you’re actually listening. If you’re not on Twitter, then you won’t know who’s talking about your brand in that space, much less take part in that conversation. You shouldn’t join Twitter just to react to an issue. Creating a presence pre-crisis helps develop a network you know shares an interest in you and what you do.
  4. Be Active – Become part of the online community. Don’t wait for the building to be burning down around you to engage your public. Prevention is always better than reaction. There are also many great free tools for tracking what happens on Twitter. Use those to preemptively ease into the conversation before a crisis even hits.

Twitter, faster than earthquakes?

AM:PM PR original crew

AM:PM PR rings in a year of doing public relations their way

Media Advisory
July 12, 2011
503-232-1015

PORTLAND, OR – (July 12. 2011) Portland-based communications team AM:PM PR celebrates a year of doing things differently during the month of July. This time last year, public relations veterans Allison and Pat McCormick left a more traditional, established firm in a downtown high rise in favor of Portland’s Central Eastside.

Choosing a renovated historic firehouse in Buckman has given AM:PM PR the chance to be a real part of a neighborhood – a seeming impossibility downtown. Making friends in Distillery Row and with People’s Art of Portland has shaped the celebration of AM:PM PR’s first year in business.

That diversity of character also defines AM:PM PR’s work with clients including Motorola, Unified Grocers, Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, and 7 Apps.

“Rather than picking clients based on their size, we have looked for companies with stories worth telling,” says AM:PM PR’s Allison McCormick.

“Part of doing things differently involves being generous with our knowledge and experience,” Pat McCormick adds.

For every nationally recognized name AM:PM PR takes on, it’s central to its mission as a company to help out businesses from the neighborhood. As the term hyperlocal helps to redefine journalism, it’s also helped to chart AM:PM PR’s trajectory. Working with Alder Pastry & Dessert, Oregon Distillers Guild and Bremik Construction have strengthened the firm’s relationships in the neighborhood and helped the organizations maximize their reach outside the neighborhood.

In honor of the company’s first birthday, AM:PM PR launched a new website, which Allison and Pat hope will exemplify many of the characteristics they recommend to their clients. It’s social, visually engaging yet clean, and is constantly updated with new content – sharing industry insights with personality.

AM:PM PR’s Birthday Bash on July 14 will serve not just as a celebration of prospering during a time of economic uncertainty, but also as a celebration of the community it calls home. Local businesses ranging from its Distillery Row neighbors to Cascade Brewing, Eat Your Heart Out Catering, Flux Salon, Portlandia International Language School and more all have pledged their time and services to make it an affair to remember.

AM:PM PR is a Portland-based public relations firm established in July 2010, and specializing in marketing, integrating social networking into strategic communications, qualitative research and corporate communications. The firm represents the consumer product, healthcare, telecommunications, technology, construction, non-profit, business-to-business and waste industries. For more information about AM:PM PR, see its website, www.ampmpr.com, follow it on Twitter @AMPMPR, or like it on Facebook. Or, just stop by Fire House No. 7 and introduce yourself.

Files:
Press Release PDF
AM:PM PR Logo
AM:PM PR Logo Vertical
AM:PM PR Team Photo

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1FjMB-pD

The wisdom and wise words of Dr. Suess

Five Dr. Seuss Quotes with PR Lessons

Dr. Seuss’s wise words for the young and old can be applied to every part of life – even in the PR business. Some of his best quotes have PR lessons within.

Top Five Dr. Seuss Quotes Translated Into PR Lessons:

1.) “Shorth is better than length.”

The most read blogs are 150 words or less.  This blog is about three times that length, so I’ve chopped it into bite-sized nuggets for easy consumption.  If you want to get your message across, whether by blog, email, video or media pitch, keep it short.  Shorthness will increase the likelihood that your message is remembered.

2.) “Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!”

We often get requests from prospective clients who need help with outreach, but have no plan in place.  Developing a strategic plan that integrates all outreach enhances the effectiveness of your efforts.  Creative brainstorming and planning will also provide social networking content ideas and pitch angles throughout the year.

3.) “I meant what I said and I said what I meant.”

Don’t create messages you think your audiences want to hear.  People want to hear truth and will respond to it.  For example, don’t say you’re green if you haven’t made real strides in the area.  Your words won’t ring true.

4.) “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

So much fear still exists around embarking on social networking.

Complicated questions: “How can we control what our employees will do when given access? How will we respond if someone trashes our good name? We’re already so busy; how can we do it all? These are just a few of the questions we hear.

Simple answers: Trust your employees.  Criticism is unlikely for most businesses. When it does happen, respond transparently and your fans will come to your defense.  Social networks are where the conversations are happening.  Transition is a must.

5.) “I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you.”

Be prepared.  Create a crisis communications plan.  It’s one of those things, like a will, that you know you should have, but it’s easy to keep putting off.  Being prepared for anything will help ensure that you maintain a consistent message and increase the likelihood of preserving a positive reputation in the face of a crisis.

More great Dr. Seuss quotes worth remembering:

Wisdom from Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax"

Dr. Seuss encouragement

Dr. Seuss's simple wisdom

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