Public Relations for External Customer Service and the Consumer.
The perception towards total product
Within the sales management we find an essential principle when it comes to providing an excellent service, is that the members of the organization are aware that the most important boss is not who is at the top of the organization chart, but who our consumers are. And it is not more important who more people send; but whoever has more internal and external clients, since management obtains greater value, the better the service is provided.
For public relations, these internal, external and consumer clients are also something more than that: they are very important audiences for their work and for the business development of the organization.
The manager of this must have a broad business sense and possess a broad compendium of competencies for his position; One of them is the ability to stimulate public relations from your position or using the possibilities that your company can offer you from areas dedicated and specialized in this matter. Of course, without ever forgetting that he is the META director, responsible for the commercial performance of their products and must lead or co-lead these processes and know all their scaffolding.
"He is the beginning of the process, he has to live it, massively infect the organization in service to external and internal customers"; since the commercial areas are interdependent to others in order to achieve their sales objectives. It is clear that these have many internal and external customers and suppliers.
It is good to take into account some of the recommendations that the text Management by Service gives us, in the use of a new language to achieve a better service in internal customer-supplier relationships and that can also be applied to external customers:
The only one qualified to define what quality is is the customer (Internal - External).
We are interested in the perceived quality and the feeling of value.
To satisfy the client, we must know their expectations and give us feedback on their perceptions.
Everything in the company is product.
The customer is willing to pay the value of the quality, as long as he perceives and receives the added value (service).
In each contact with the company, the client increases or decreases their perception of quality.
Everyone in the company is part of the product.
Customers always want more and this is what guarantees the permanence of the Total Quality process.
Everyone in the company has customers and suppliers.
Internal customers' products (too) have to be sold.
It is from the internal customer-supplier relationships that the needs of the external customer are integrated into the company's processes.
You have to invert the organization chart.
Fiefdoms must be broken.
The company without walls.
Total Quality is the accumulation of satisfactory experiences that the client receives in their relationship with the company.
The important thing about this new language is to bring the company closer to a new perception of its real role in contributing to business growth. For a company with internal customer service processes largely guarantees external sales management and feedback from this process facilitates its adjustment to meet the needs of customers and consumers of the product or service.
Establishing real relational channels within the organization brings together the different actors within the business process, optimizes times, improves relationships, standardizes some service instances. Ultimately it benefits the external customer; improving his understanding of the organization and possibly ensuring that he or she will consume the product or service again.
Feedback
Among the functions and aptitudes in public relations of sales professionals, we find that they must have the capacity and training to investigate different items to clients and end consumers and provide effective feedback. With this, the process adopts optimal communication qualities, increasing the relationship capacity, improving the product, the service and the relationship itself. The sales force should not only be part of the commercial strategy; but also the communications and public relations strategy. We will see this part in greater depth later.
From the Sales Manager to the salesperson who has a direct relationship with the consumer, they must carry out audit reports of clients, who must become active actors in the improvement of the product. This will guarantee, in the medium term, a more effective sale of products much closer and more reliable to consumer segments, increasing the corporate knowledge of the client.
Likewise, when the consumer perceives changes in favor of the service and the product they need, they will possibly gain much more loyalty, allowing public opinion to improve on the product itself and the company.
The sales force, part of the Public Relations strategy.
The external client and the consumer must perceive the corporate identity of the company, as this produces confidence in them when buying the product or service. Being and appearing to be is important; The sales force should not be disjointed from the Public Relations and Communication strategy.
The moment of the sale is one of the most important communication scenarios of the Company-Client relationship and all the corporate values and business identity must be transmitted in it. That should be a time of exchange, not only of products or services for money; but of organizational knowledge, since this facilitates the business and will optimize a relationship close to the ideal. “This is an image aspect; the consumer has to receive information from the company as satisfactory as possible, both in terms of the benefits or characteristics of the product, and the company itself (modernity, growth, satisfied employees, good relationships, stability, etc. ”.
To be more precise in the concept of public image, it is necessary to know that “it is not an object, a physical thing or a product. It is a mental phenomenon. And like all images of the mind, an ambiguous, enigmatic phenomenon, and as such, powerful ”. This is due to an accumulation of experiences and reception of information about a certain company; that in the long run largely mark the concept towards a brand, industry, organization or person. For this public image to be positive, and your product or service to be more attractive, you have to use commercial tools as well as Public Relations.
Well, this makes the moment of contact with the commercial representative of the company with the client; be an enriching experience for the relationship with that person or institution. It should be noted that in this case public relations actions should be "the vehicle of the trust strategy and those who know how to use them properly, go ahead of their less skillful competitors in communication."
Note that public opinion is given by the social sum of individual opinion. And the global Public Relations strategy must not only take into account direct or indirect massive impact actions, but also those with direct individual impact, which unquestionably have collective repercussions.
Needs and Relationships between Commercial and Communication Areas or Public Relations.
It is very important that the Commercial and Public Relations or Communications teams headed by their managers make a strategic alliance to support both strategies and ultimately leverage the definitive approach to the company's objectives.
Including commercial actors in the communication strategy, public relations, corporate identity and customer service is essential to give a tinge of identity to the actions carried out from these areas and that ultimately reinforce the messages that you want to transmit to the public.. This initiative must be given, in any case, from at least one of the parties.
This approach of the commercial or sales area is necessary in most of the times, because “the public relations department is normally located in the main offices, and its employees are so busy with the different publics - shareholders, employees, legislators, officials of the city, that tasks in support of product marketing objectives could be overlooked. In addition, marketing managers and those who deal with public relations do not always speak the same language.
Public relations or communications directors must be aware that vendors are carriers of communication and become a means of direct influence.
It must be taken into account that in this first approach, the first conscious task of Public Relations is being fulfilled. It is important that a meeting or a scenario is developed to present the concerns of inclusion to the communication strategy and the commercial strategies that you want to support from the communication. Joint goals, solidarity actions, objectives, complementary strategies, training, methodologies and timetables for execution, managers and evaluation tools must be set.
It is essential that these managers recognize the global and particular context of the company and before undertaking strategic planning; assess the initial situation and diagnose it. This is not a short-term job, it is a medium and long-term job.
Possibly, in addition, it is very attractive for public relations to include salespeople in the communication strategy for crisis management; as they are important actors due to their contact with the external client. This would enable them to channel and soften negative rumors and anesthetize critical moments of information harmful to the company and prevent its destabilization.
Global list of strategies
Without the need for an approach like the previous one or planning, public relations actions influence sales. It is necessary to know that a news item published in a mass media, due to a company event carried out by public relations, can influence the interest and purchase decision of a consumer.
That is why it is important that this type of impact be measured from the commercial and communications or public relations areas. Well, this must be born from the planning of these actions to control them and prepare the business scaffolding in the face of these events encouraged by an intentional communicative action.
A global PR job unquestionably paves fertile ground for skilled salespeople - trained, corporate savvy, and PR skills - to reap better rewards. "The charismatic talks by Lee Iaccoca (Former President of Chrysler Corporation) before large audiences helped sell Chrysler cars to consumers and stocks to investors." Among the most common PR actions for sales, we find product launches, press conferences, events by sectors, social events, and free press.
Public Relations, eyes on your audiences
Already, at this moment it is necessary to begin to identify the audiences that a sales management or commercial area of a company may have, in its visible head. Without a doubt, this is one of the most important elements: recognizing those key audiences for a manager of this type.
Of course, each company has very particular characteristics and as the audience map can change and vary in its composition; That is why we will address the most common audiences that can obviously have an influence on the management of marketing.
Buyers and consumers
As I said at the beginning, this segment of the public in the inverted organization chart is the head of the entire organization and its reason for being. And it is clear that there are different sub-segments in this category.
We can identify very defined audiences such as:
Large-scale distributors
Medium-scale distributors
Small-scale distributors
Consumers in large points of sale
Consumers in small points of sale
Consumers divided by geographical areas
Consumers divided by culture
Consumers who are not buyers
Buyers who are not consumers
Consumers, distributors and potential buyers divided by their different characteristics.
This group is the one that directly, and in the present of the company, is financing its operation and it seeks that the future continues to do so. The scaffolding of sales "represents for the Company the means that surpasses in importance all other means of communication with the general consumer public"; since it has an intimate contact with the consumer and buyer public, contact that must be used by the Sales and Public Relations Management. It is essential to receive the perceptions of these audiences and the vehicle for this must be, to a large extent, the sales representatives; in addition to the manager in charge of this area and the one for Public Relations.
When these relationships are approached, the environment of trust that is generated in the representatives is important and that they are very committed to the objectives that the company seeks and are not simple commission agents who do not vividly measure the importance of their management and that of the institution for he.
This approach must be a complete transmission of trust, social commitment, satisfaction of needs and understanding on the part of the company, the vendors, the client and the end consumer. It could almost be said that the company understands its customer and satisfies him, benefits the seller and he in turn allows to know all that scale of added values, not only of the product, but of the company.
Sellers
The sales force; Whether this is a plant and is part of the payroll or they are commission agents, they are an important element in transmitting appropriate messages to our previous audience.
Well, in both cases the initial benefit, which is the economic one, is for both parties.
A dissatisfied, discouraged or dishonest seller transmits an inappropriate message; the customer receives it and possibly even stops seeing the company positively. This definitely affects the growth capacity of any person, project or firm. Well, adherence to the market does not only depend on having good processes and being able to sell products; they also need a macro adhesion within the society and the culture in which it operates.
These Public Relations, with all publics "help our complex and pluralistic society to make more effective decisions due to their contribution to mutual understanding between the public and the institutions." Decisions that also affect consumption.
The sales manager and his supervisors must not only measure the results in sales, the total management carried out by this representative is also important, which can be measured in longer terms. Salespeople have to feel the business culture of the organization, its history, its social impact, the number of jobs it generates and the key messages; In addition, he must be able to transmit all that. He can be a collector and distributor of thoughts, perceptions and impacts caused on the public he handles.
They must also have a relationship with their superiors and feel that they are part of the company, because in reality they are.
Supervisors
This must be a channel of total communication between various points of the organization and its audiences. They are the face before the commercial force and these, for that reason, perceive the company by these people. They must be aware of the communication and public relations strategy and facilitate these processes. In addition, they must transmit the necessary business knowledge to the vendors.
“… The sales manager and the supervisors of the same branch have been incorporated into the formal organization, who have the power of command and decision, but upon reaching the subordinates there is a phenomenon that those heads of linear authority give orders to people or vendors who are not employees of the company, but rather commission agents ”. This ability of sellers to receive orders and to give them by supervisors; In addition to the power relationship between these, it must also be used in the gear of the commission agents to the relational structure of the company.
The manager must have full communication with the supervisors to monitor this public relations task, together with the Public Relations department.
Internal service providers
It is relevant that this audience is complemented by the commercial sales force; Because of their speed of response, the quality of the service they provide and the efficiency in this relationship, it is possible to better serve external customers and therefore, a better business image can be transmitted.
The passage of the product or service to consumers, the most important communicative action
It is indisputably necessary to reach the conclusion that a product or service is the most important means of communication and corporate knowledge for the end consumer.
For the client, the product is the very definition of the company that is providing us a service or providing a product to solve a particular need. If this need is completely solved for the client and some added values of design, practicality, functionality, multifunctionality or any other are provided; the client will have the best perception of our company.
If this happens, this customer will consume again and if so, this same customer will be a public relations, advertising, communication or sales agent; that will generate a positive impact on the brand in your particular social circle and enable the arrival of new customers to the gondolas or offices of our company.
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