When Does a Business Need Public Relations?
I recently returned from a trip to Chicago with my family. My travel experience is not one I will soon forget. I arrived with my family a little more than two hours before our scheduled flight time and was told that the airline had no record of us on the flight we were booked on. I then waited in three different lines to get the problem resolved, only to find out that the flight had been delayed two hours.
I had remained calm and optimistic, even through my irritation. However, the point that sent me over the edge was when I checked in with the gate agent for the flight. He told that the boarding pass I held in my hand was a mere standby ticket. My family of five was on standby on the last flight out. The gate agent was the fifth airline representative person I had dealt with that day and the first to offer a smile, an apology and a fairly quick solution — but only after I explained to him that I would probably reach across the counter, grab his loud speaker and tell everyone in the concourse what an awful airline this one was and what I’d been through with them. Even though the gate agent resolved the situation and my family boarded the flight (which had now been delayed another hour) it wasn’t enough to keep me from telling my friends, family and business associates about my experience. The damage had already been done.
A company that has that much interaction with the public needs a strong public relations plan and implementation strategy. They need to have men and women who are not only trained in how to resolve problems, but also empowered enough to do something when a customer is at the end of their rope from experiences similar to mine. I talked to enough people in lines that day to know that this particular airline was not treating their customers as well as they could have.
If there are enough deeply unsatisfied customers of any company, especially a global company, like an airline, those customers will pass along their horrible travel experiences by word of mouth and via the internet. This will create a ripple effect and will, sooner or later, affect that company adversely.
Take a look at the airline industry as a whole. Fuel prices are not entirely to blame for the loss in business these companies are experiencing.
A solid public relations strategy not only gets the good stories out to the public, but can also be a company’s saving grace when it comes to crisis. The catch is to have the PR strategy in place before a crisis happens.