Filed under: Customer relations | Tags: Bob Meighan, Customer relations, Intuit, public relations, Quicken, Quicken 2006, Quicken 2009
In my previous post, I lambasted Intuit for what I labeled as disingenuous marketing-speak. Evidence of their PR savvy showed up quickly, as their PR Department and VP of customer relations commented on the blog. Their responses to what I wrote are absolutely first-rate, and can be found here.
The reason their responses are so great is that they explain, in no uncertain terms, why they have taken the steps they have. This is the kind of communications that actually resonate with consumers, because it’s not vague, nebulous marketing fluff. I might not agree with it, but at least I understand it.
I think the lesson here – at least from my perspective as an entrepreneur who needs full information about the factors that affect my operations – is that your customers should be treated as though they are discerning, intelligent people rather than lowing masses to be placated with platitudes.
Intuit’s second response was excellent; if only it could have been their first.
Filed under: Customer relations | Tags: bad pr, Bob Meighan, Customer relations, Intuit, public relations, Quicken, Quicken 2006, Quicken 2009
Talented writing can take you only so far when it comes to breaking bad news to customers, and Intuit pushed that limit to the breaking point with its recent notice to customers that they can either pay for a product upgrade or lose critical features of the product they bought. Although most of my PR analyses are based on a dispassionate assessment of communications that don’t directly affect me, this one is different because I’m the one who got the message from Bob Meighan, Quicken’s VP of Customer Advocacy.
I bought Quicken 2006 because the accounting professional who does our taxes suggested it, and uses it herself. Now, about a year later, Intuit (the maker of Quicken) sends us an e-mail saying this:
As of April 30, 2009, Online Services and live technical support for Quicken 2006 will no longer be available.1 To maintain uninterrupted service, upgrade to Quicken 2009.
To entice us to upgrade, we are offered incentives, including a discount, free installation help and shipping, and bonus software that we don’t need. There’s no mention of the fact that this upgrade will cost us another $80, until we click on the link that takes us to the download site. And not only that, but if we don’t take this upgrade option, we lose the ability to download data from our bank account online (among other services), which is critical to our ability to conduct business.
The wording they use to describe this form of customer blackmail is:
To provide the highest service levels and deliver leading-edge solutions at a low cost, we are discontinuing online support for older versions.
Nice words, aren’t they? “Highest service levels” and “leading-edge solutions” and “low cost” sound lovely. But no amount of talented wording can cover the reality of what they’re saying, which is:
Either you upgrade from Quicken 2006 to our newest version of Quicken, or you lose some of the most critical functionalities of the software you bought from us. Your deadline for compliance is April 30.
I have no doubt that the Quicken end-user license agreement states very clearly that they can gut their software of critical online functionalities at their whim. But I’m also pretty sure that customers don’t expect to be treated like this. Intuit’s e-mail to customers is the worst kind of public relations – the kind that has to make a bad management decision sound like it’s in the customers’ best interests.
One of my former colleagues – a PR veteran with decades of experience – had a saying that applies to situations like this: “You can polish that turd all you want, but you ain’t foolin’ nobody: it’s still gonna smell like a turd when you’re done.”
Filed under: Business columns, Customer relations, reputation management | Tags: corporate ethics, Customer relations, IRS, peter kurer, public relations, public relations ethics, reputation management, Swiss banks, UBS Bank
At its most basic, public relations is an effort to achieve the intimacy and trust of interpersonal communications. What makes it so difficult is to achieve this goal while targeting tens of thousands, if not millions, of people. But there are strategies you can adopt to make your tactics more effective. One of the most important is to behave ethically at all times: do the right things, and when you stray from the straight path, own up to it completely and without excuses.
Whatever misdeeds Swiss bank UBS is guilty of, this is the tack they are taking now. The bank has admitted wrongdoing on a large scale, according to the NYT story about it:
In a striking admission, UBS said that from 2000 through 2007, some of its private bankers and managers had “participated in a scheme to defraud the United States” and the I.R.S. by helping American clients set up and conceal offshore accounts. The scheme involved falsifying or not properly obtaining or filing certain tax forms required of both the bank and its clients.
Another important step in the PR process is to have a high-level executive perform the mea culpa, to demonstrate the organization’s commitment to avoiding malfeasance in the future. UBS can cross this off its list as completed; the words of its Chairman, Peter Kurer:
“UBS sincerely regrets the compliance failures in its U.S. cross-border business that have been identified by the various government investigations in Switzerland and the U.S., as well as our own internal review. We accept full responsibility for these improper activities.”
In a nutshell, that’s what’s required. A statement admitting not just guilt, but summarizing the extent of the guilt. Then, the statement of regret/remorse from a high-level executive, to humanize the statement and make it resonate with target audiences.
If you ever find that you or your organization has abrogated the trust of its target audiences (clients, customers, shareholders, etc.), do NOT prevaricate. Come clean right away, so that you can salvage your image and reputation, and move on to bigger and better things.
Filed under: Business columns, Customer relations, Political | Tags: advertising, Ben and Jerry's, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Customer relations, marketing, marketing communications, marketing to children, public relations, RBGH, RBGH-free, Susan Linn, toy advertisements
The purpose of this blog is to provide insights and miniature case-studies to those who are interested in public relations and marketing, and although this particular post does contribute to the overall purpose, I must admit up front that I’m emotionally invested in this topic and therefore label some of the players involved as morons.
The story is about a letter-writing campaign by parents who are asking toy manufacturers to stop producing advertisements that appeal directly to children. The title alone (“Parents’ Plea: No More Ads for Toys“) is enough to make me cringe. It pressures companies that make toys to redirect their marketing efforts to audiences that don’t have as much impact on the companies’ bottom line, and more importantly, it shows how completely some parents have abdicated their responsibility to raise discerning kids that have a modicum of self control; in effect, they’ve given up and are asking to be relieved of duty.
When it comes to placing the responsibility for self-control on the advertisers rather than on consumers, this is a disturbing precedent for anyone who wants to communicate with their target audiences. The underlying assumption is that if your communications become really effective, it is somehow predatory and “unfair” (a word actually used by somebody in the story referring to the kid-targeted ads). This passage of the story describes the philosophy behind the ad-ban proponents:
The director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, psychologist Susan Linn, said she and her colleagues don’t expect toy companies to stop advertising — rather, they want the ads directed at parents.
“It’s cruel to dangle irresistible ads for toys and electronics in front of kids — encouraging them to nag for gifts that their parents can’t afford,” she said. “It’s just not fair.”
I studied the psychology of advertising in college, and in fact my bachelor’s degree is in advertising and one of my minors was psychology, so I know that most children lack the cognitive ability to differentiate television ads from television shows. That’s why TV stations for decades have been required by law to delineate when the show has paused for a commercial break (“We’ll be right back after these messages!”), and when the commercials are over and the show has resumed (“And now back to…!”).
But Susan Linn apparently looks at the world as though children are sitting in front of the TV, wads of their parents’ cash in-hand, being ordered by their favorite cartoon characters to spend the mortgage payment and grocery money on a Wii. Nothing can change the fact that advertisements are simply commercial messages. And nothing can change the fact that parents can – if they are indeed worthy of the title “parents” – turn off the TV. Or, if they lack the spine for that simple move, they can – again, if they are indeed parents – tell their kids that getting all those (or even any) expensive toys is simply not possible.
If they can’t take these simple (although possibly difficult) steps, it is absurd to expect advertisers to do what the parents themselves refuse to do.
In the interest of full disclosure, my biases should be clear: I am not only a professional communications consultant, and therefore have a stake in being able to communicate clearly to whichever target audience is most appropriate, but I am also the parent of three kids, and we haven’t had TV in our house for many years. And, when times have been economically tight, we have simply told them that we can’t afford this or that toy. It’s not easy, but it’s our job to do things that are difficult; that’s what parenting requires. I don’t need the CEO of Toys-R-Us to help me exercise self-control, or to pass on that ability to my kids.
For companies or other organizations that wish to communicate to their target audiences, this trend of shifting responsibility away from consumers and onto communicators is potentially dangerous. If, for example, you advertise a product or service to disadvantaged minorities, there are “advocates” like Susan Linn who may well decide that you are being “unfair,” because your ads are so effective that they somehow prompt people to make decisions about their own money that the “advocates” think are detrimental to the consumers’ well-being. In such cases, they may – in the interest of “fairness,” – call for your ads, press releases, speeches or whatever else to be made less persuasive, or to avoid speaking directly to the folks who you want to hear your message.
If they get really riled up about it, they could start advocating legislation that would require you to communicate less effectively. Sounds absurd, I know. However, it was done to tobacco companies. It has also been done to nutritional supplement companies. The producers of recombinant bovine growth hormone are lobbying to do it to dairy product manufacturers, believe it or not. They’re trying to get laws passed that would prohibit Ben and Jerry’s and others from labeling their products as being “RBGH-free” because they don’t think it’s “fair.” Ben and Jerry’s – and many other dairy retailers – know that their customers want to know about RBGH, but it only takes some savvy lobbying by people holding “fairness” up as their goal to ensure that blatantly unfair laws are passed.
Commercial communications are, in my opinion, a matter of free speech. But, when personal responsibility for one’s own spending habits are taken out of the equation, absolutely any kind of restriction on speech is possible in the interest of “fairness.”
Filed under: Customer relations, crisis communications | Tags: Angels Secret Embrace, bra, bras, crisis communications, Customer relations, formaldehyde, marketing communications, public relations, rash, Roberta Ritter, Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up, Victoria's Secret
One of the worst nightmares for PR people is having to handle a situation that threatens your image as an organization that provides top-notch goods or services to customers. So it’s bad news when one or more customers are vocal and public about criticizing you, and you have to scramble to put together messaging that reassures everyone that you’re on top of things. But it’s even worse news when the criticism comes in the form of a lawsuit… not because the stakes are higher, but because it severely limits what you can say.
Victoria’s Secret is facing just such a situation with some of its core offerings; some of its bras, according to a recently-filed lawsuit, have caused some customers severe rashes and blistering, and the plaintiff’s lawyers are filing it as a class-action.
The truly horrible thing about having to deal with lawsuits like this is that your organization’s lawyers are going to tell you, the PR person, that you cannot, should not, and will not say ANYthing about this situation, or anything related to it, without first running it by them, and in any case, they’re highly unlikely to approve what you want to say. Their reasoning is sound from a legal standpoint, but it’s murder when you’re trying to reassure your customers that you’re committed to doing all you can to track down the problem and make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. In lawyer-ese, that would be tantamount to admitting guilt.
So Victoria’s Secret has no official statement about the situation on its website, and the only thing we have from them is a quote in the story:
A Victoria’s Secret spokesperson admitted the company had received direct complaints from customers, but added the bras remain on store shelves.
The company said it is investigating complaints and released a statement that said, “We are sorry that a small number of people have had an issue and we want to help them determine the cause.
“Customer safety and satisfaction are always our primary concerns and we take seriously any issues our customers may have with our products,” the statement continued.
And about allegations that formaldehyde was found in one of the bras:
“We have strict quality controls around our products, and we do not use formaldehyde in our bras,” the company said in a statement.
The first part of their statement is pretty standard stuff, but pretty weak, too. If they weren’t faced with the threat of lawyers (both their own and the plaintiff’s) perched over them, they really ought to fall all over themselves to offer replacements and perhaps even offer gift certificates to help sooth those rashes.
Similarly, the issue of formaldehyde is unfortunate, because it put them in the position of having to mention formaldehyde. Even though it’s in the context of denying that they use it, the question remains: Okay, what toxins DO you use in your bras?
Playing a defensive game like this is a real loser for a retail organization, especially with such restrictions on what you can say. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are under no such restriction, and in fact it’s to their benefit to mouth off as much as humanly possible. They go to the media, they get on TV, they get online, and they yell about their experiences as loudly and as often as possible, even if some or all of what they say is later determined in court to be wild exaggerations. Their goal is to set the tone of the discussion early so that later reporting (and jury pools, presumably) will carry at least some of that flavor that favors their position.
From a PR standpoint, lawsuits are just awful because they dramatically reduce the number of tools you have at your disposal to protect your image and reputation. It’ll be interesting to see how this case unfolds over the next few months, as the judge decides whether this case can go forward as a class-action.
Filed under: Business columns, Customer relations | Tags: Beaufort Books, Customer relations, Jewel of Medina, Little Mommy Cuddle and Coo, LittleBigPlanet recall, Mattell, public relations, Random House, Sony
Sony’s recently-announced recall of its Playstation game LittleBigPlanet provides an interesting juxtaposition of strategies when it comes to offending people on religious grounds. This is tough turf for PR folks, because you often can’t win: if you recall or otherwise take dramatic action to “fix” the problem, your actions could be construed as admission of doing something wrong, and it may not ever placate the easily-offended, in which case you will have spent huge amounts of money for no gain.
If, on the other hand, you don’t take dramatic action right away, you could alienate paying customers; if their complaints gain traction with others, you could face a major publicity problem that makes you look unresponsive if you end up recalling the offending items anyway.
As a PR person, it’s fascinating to watch these dramas unfold and to see how the various companies rationalize their decisions to their customers, shareholders, and others.
Random House dropped the controversial novel “Jewel of Medina” after determining that its publication would anger some Muslims, in particular those who are so offended by such content that they might commit acts of violence against the publisher, author, or bookstores selling the work. Another publisher – Beaufort Books – picked up the novel, and I’m sure is thrilled by all the free publicity generated by Random House’s decision. Random House said it made its decision based on safety concerns, which essentially says that they’re not going to take a stand against intimidation just for this book. Okay… we know where they’re coming from; they’re mainstream, they just want to make money peacefully. Beaufort, on the other hand, makes it clear that they pick up controversy and run with it.
In another case of giving religious offense, toy giant Mattell, as well as many retail stores, have so far refused to pull the Little Mommy Cuddle and Coo doll off of shelves, despite some loud voices and global media coverage about its alleged uttering of the phrase “Islam is the light,” which some are saying is deliberate, and an attempt at prosyletizing. Mattel’s response – while not pulling the doll out of stores – has been to rectify the perceived problem in future editions of the doll. Here’s part of its response to concerned customers:
Please be assured that:
-The Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo dolls feature realistic baby sounds including sweet cooing, giggling and baby babble with no real sentence structure;
-The only scripted word that the doll actually says is “mama.” There is a sound that may resemble something close to the word “night, right, or light.” To avoid any potential misinterpretation, we have eliminated that segment of the sound file from future production.
-Because the original sound track is compressed into a file that can be played through an inexpensive toy speaker, the final sound may vary from the original recording.
To me, this is a clear indication of Mattell’s underlying logic – to issue a recall of all the dolls with this perceived “problem” would be to give in to irrational hysteria, and they’re not going to do it. They have chosen their key message in this furor (there are no real words other than “mama,” and the rest is unstructured babble), and like any smart company, they’re going to stick with it and repeat it as often as they can.
I think it’s a smart move, and probably the right one. The only reason they’d have to issue a recall would be if people got into such an outrage over it that they effectively organize and get some coordinated media coverage and customer action going. This is not inconceivable, given that Fox News and other conservative news sources seem to be credulous chroniclers of the “Islam is the Light” theory. In such a scenario, Mattell would probably have to back down, which would be a blow to its credibility, depending on how it’s handled.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit to a bias regarding this particular situation. As an American who is Muslim, I find it difficult to stomach all this religious sensitivity, no matter which side it comes from; I am embarrassed that the people who riot in response to “offensive” cartoons call themselves Muslims, and I’m appalled that such a big deal would be made out of a doll’s babble. So, this bias might be coloring my analysis of Mattell’s (and others’) responses to religion-based sensitivities. I hope not, though.
Regarding Sony’s recall of LittleBigPlanet, I think they made the right move. Sony is a global company, and dozens of countries in which they do business are majority Muslim nations that buy a LOT of electronics. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for a long time, I can assure you that Sony is the gold standard for electronics, especially if it has the “Made in Japan” label. The last thing Sony needs is for something small and insignificant, like a piece of background music soundtrack, to derail their image internationally. Hence, the full-throated response: apology, recall, delay in hitting store shelves.
Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: crisis communications, Customer relations, Grandpa's Knob, Noble Environmental Power, public relations, wind power
This story is a great example of what not to do – ever – when the media is after you in a negative situation. According to the article, Noble Environmental Power is rumored to be facing financial troubles and is unable to continue its projects in progress. Nobody from the company was easily reachable (and the reporter even described seeing the empty desks from a window), and when he reached a spokesperson at the company’s Connecticut headquarters, the flack promised to send a statement and then didn’t.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Before, the company just looked like it was facing financial troubles, which is understandable in the current economic climate. But by avoiding questions and lying to reporters, they’ve officially passed into the category of sketchy characters, reminiscent of fly-by-night operations that bilk people out of their money and skip town.
Let’s say the company was only suffering a temporary setback, and they pull themselves together and get back to work… what kind of a select board would want to continue doing business with people who leave their offices unattended and won’t respond to questions? What kind of investors would want to keep their money with people who disappear – or at least give the impression that they’ve disappeared – when tough questions are asked?
This is exactly the kind of organization that people, companies, and government entities avoid, so as not to get burned. If they can’t even talk about their troubles, the public won’t assume they’re any better at solving them.
