IMC Hawks Blog

Consumer’s Point of View

Written by

imcclass

in

Although this may seem repetitive of earlier posts, we feel that it is necessary to give another point of view on Corporate Communication to give a full understanding of what it entails.  With that said…

Professor: “Define ‘Corporate Communication.’”

Students: [blank stares] “umm. Communicating Corporately?”

Good guess, but no.

This was the task presented to our 495 Corporate Communication class. What we found was that defining Corporate Communication was slightly more involved than one might initially think. At the start, we suggested definitions such as “all communication within a business or organization.” Profound, we know. When our teacher pointed out the serious lack of content in our initial definitions, we had to regroup and analyze what Corporate Communication actually meant and create a definition that would encompass the multi-faceted divisions that work together to create Corporate Communication. Our group defined Corporate Communication as:

“The consistent communicative interaction that builds on organization’s identity and reputation by persuading its internal and external stakeholders to buy into the organizations public narrative. “

Sounds good right? … We think so too.

So, what does this mean?

Communication within an organization must be consistent.  Everything within a corporation is constantly moving and changing; therefore, they must have definite communication practices in order to be successful.  These practices help maintain and sustain their relationships with their stakeholders and/ or public. While maintaining their relationships, an organization must build an identity and reputation. They do this through their advertising, marketing, financial charitable contributions, etc. These efforts are to persuade and convince the public and their stakeholders to buy into and partake in the narrative the organization has created.

You may be thinking at this point, “well that sounds great, but why am I reading this and why is this important?”

The importance of successful Corporate Communication is that it has a trickle-down affect, which ends with the consumer, aka you! Your satisfaction with an organization is dependent on the success of their Corporate Communication skills. For example, this became very obvious this week to one of our writers while dealing with AT&T. While considering the consequences of the criminal behavior that releasing our frustration on this company would cause, we weighed out the pros and cons and figured the most effective and productive use of our frustration would be to illustrate the effects and consequences of poor Corporate Communication and how it directly impacts you, the consumer.

Setting up a wireless Internet account and having it installed shouldn’t be an impossible task, right?  Well, apparently it is when you’re dealing with AT&T.  After setting up an installation appointment, mind you it was two weeks after the initial phone calls and account set-up, and having the repairman install it at the wrong address, several calls had to be made to the customer service line.  The calls almost always ended in the same routine:

Call. Wait. Talk with a representative who takes your number just in case “we get disconnected.” Get disconnected. No call back.

Finally, I got through to a representative who tells me it will be at least two weeks until I can get another installation date, and wait, she has just checked and the Internet availability in my area is non-existent.  “Wait? What?”, I say.  Couldn’t they have recognized this discrepancy when I set up my account?  After a weeklong process or countless waiting, endless daytime minutes used, and plenty of pent-up frustration, I told them to forget it and cancel my account.

On the contrary, as a test we called the customer service line to Chase Sapphire credit cards.  They advertise that you get an actual person whenever you place a customer call (what we consider acceptable Corporate Communication, unlike AT&T) and sure enough, NO RECORDING; you actually speak to a real person immediately without any hassle.

We’ve all experienced some kind of frustration in dealing with recordings and major corporations but have we ever stepped back and thought of what it was saying to us about the corporation?  This is our story, what’s yours?

Breanna Alexander
Lauren Dehart
Lauren Smith
Kelly Wiley

Comments

5 responses to “Consumer’s Point of View”

  1. Micaela Fouhy Avatar
    Micaela Fouhy

    Breanna, Lauren, Lauren, and Kelly,
    I really enjoyed reading your blog post, and examples. I think what you said is very accurate. I never really knew how to define “Corporate Communication” (probably because I haven’t taken the 495 class) but, it was very easy to understand as a reader. In my IMC class we are learning about brands. I feel that brands definitely have to do with corporate communication. When starting up a company, it is almost like you are creating a new brand. And with what you four have said, without communication within the company, brands also cannot work without communication through the company..for example having good ideas. It is all about how to effectively engage their consumers and not having good communication won’t let that work positively.

    Reply
  2. Brittany collins Avatar
    Brittany collins

    I also enjoyed reading your post. It is my first time on the website so repetitive or not i’m glad to read your insight on communicating corporately. It happens so many time when you need that business to call you back due to bad service or when you really don’t want to take a computerized survey and they keep calling. Communication is very important in many fields, you’d think we’d start to get it right.

    Reply
  3. Kimberly Mans Avatar
    Kimberly Mans

    This entire article allowed me to get a better understanding of corporate communication and how many corporations fail to provide for their consumers. Although I have yet to take 495, this article gave me a sneak peek at what’s to anticipate. As for the examples provided about AT&T, I completely agree that they are failing to communicate appropriately with consumers. I have had a similar problem with the voice recordings with DELL. As soon as the semester was approaching, my DELL crashed and I needed a new one as soon as possible. “A representative will be with you shortly.” They failed to communicate with me, the consumer, and I ended up on hold for over forty minutes waiting for the recording to bring me to a representative. Finally after overcoming the frustration, I waited for the representative and finally received a new DELL several weeks into the semester. For this very reason, corporate communication needs to be recognized and improved by corporations like AT&T and DELL.

    Reply
  4. Mark Powell Avatar
    Mark Powell

    I think you all did a great job with the definition of Corporate Communication. You broke it down from a textbook definition and then applied it to a real life situation. In my Intro to IMC class we discussed how marketers brand their corporation is a major part of how much success their corporation will have. I think that you all hit this issue head on when you described the need for corporations to develop a relationship with their stakeholders and sustain it while also developing a consistent identity that consumers can count on. You described that they do that through advertising and other marketing schemes to get consumers to buy in and be a stakeholder in the organization. Those values are the core of what IMC is all about and are important in all forms of marketing and corporate communication. You have to give the people what they want, while still supplying benefits for your company as well. The worst thing you can turn out to be as a corporation is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

    Reply
  5. Lee Faison Avatar
    Lee Faison

    I thought you all did a great job with this blog. I completely agree with the trickle down affect when dealing with Corporate Communication. It is extremely important to gain the satisfaction from the corporation all the way to the consumer. We have been talking about brands in our class and I also feel that brand names stem from effective corporate communication. If there is lack there of from the corporation it will trickle down to the consumer therefore giving the brand a so called bad name. A corporation must stand by its principles. If Chase sapphire says they cut out the waiting for a representative then they must comply with that. Sending the wrong message or false advertising will ruin the brand name that these corporations are putting out there. All in all I enjoyed the post and thought you all did a great job explaining corporate communication.

    Reply

Leave a reply to Kimberly Mans Cancel reply

More posts