Customer Service IS Corporate Messaging

How many corporations know how its customer service (CS) department and personnel are interacting with the public ... As customer service is usually the first human interaction that your customers have - particularly if you are an Internet-based business - shouldn't you know what your people are saying? If you are in a public relations department, here's a suggestion: work down in customer service for a day. Answer the phones, answer the emails. Do you really know what your customers are saying, or are you too insulated in the PR department? You want to know the real issues for your company, spend a day in the trenches of customer service. Then, work with the head of CS to ensure that messaging is consistent across the board. Should the two departments be connected? Of course not, that's close to impossible. But, they should work together. When I was at corporate messaging. Every company has a mission statement, and customer service is the vehicle for that corporate message that actually is communicated to the field. Like I noted above, PR should work with CS on messaging and work to make sure that the CS representatives are using the right message. The happy ending? I IM'ed an engineer I know there, he fixed the two photos, and he apologized. He got it - that the customer, while not always right, is important for the long term health of any company. Plus, he's a good guy. :) POP! Public Relations, a public relations firm based in Arizona, USA.