PR as Customer Ombudsman

I'm not certain who first came up with the concept of PR as the customer ombudsman, but it seems to me to be about the best idea for the future of PR I've heard. I got to thinking about it earlier today when I read Kami's Communications Overtones this morning. While she mentioned me, she attributed to Mike Davidson at Newsvines.  I don't exactly see it there, so maybe Kami should get the credit.

In any case, I think it's a great idea for a new way to define PR in the Conversational Era. Instead of collaborating with marketing departments, let PR collaborate with customers, prospects, partners and even investors, then serve as their champions to the company.

A few months back Richard Edelman was struggling to redefine the meaning of the "PR" letters. That seemed to me to be a little like removing spots from a leopard. This is a better and bigger idea. This is about authentic relationships with a company's publics. This is an evolution of PR from a message shovelware tool to an interactive catalyst that brings companies closer together.

Comments

[Dave Taylor]

Well, I'm not convinced. I'm reminded of how when I first started working at a Fortune 500 company I was so surprised that "Human Relations" (HR) wasnt actually the ombudsman for employees with the management staff. I had always thought that HR was the employee advocate and the group that would listen when non-execs had problems.

Of course, that's completely wrong and I came to my senses when I left Hewlett-Packard after five years and it was glaringly obvious that the entire sum of HR's job is to ensure that the company doesn't get embroiled in any employment lawsuits. HR, in my experience, are lawsuit avoidance experts, not employee ombudsman.

In a similar sense, I just can't see how Public Relations is going to morph from "crafting and managing the message" to serving as the interface between customers and the company, Shel. It's not an area where PR professionals are skilled and it's already covered (ostensibly) by customer service, isn't it?

Further, "collaborating with investors" makes me very anxious. Investor relations are well-schooled in the many nuances of SEC rules, laws, and investor representations and to just drop PR people into that mix could be a legal and corporate disaster.

I agree with you that PR is evolving, but I'm not sure we can see the final form yet...

[Mike D.]

Shel:

I first mentioned the "PR as ombudsman" idea in the comments to your blog entry entitled "What Must PR Do? Part 4 Press Releases":

Surely you read your own comments! :)

[shel Israel]

A thousand red-faced pardons. I have been really scattered these past two days, rushing to finish projects before leaving for Europe tomorrow. Please take as some consolation the fact that I called the idea the best I've yet heard for the future of PR.

[Juan Pablo Tapia]

I think the definition take us to an intersting place of the "defender-role" of the people, don`t you think?.

[Kami Huyse]

I do give Mike all the credit for calling it, but it is something that I have been working around in my mind, and my practice, for some time.

There has been a lot of talk (and action) lately the idea of product "evangelists," but I think that moniker is too pushy and too product-central.

In my practice, I have always called the concept "advocacy" for the customer/public. But the term ombudsman is apropos and formalizes the concept.

[Philippe Borremans]

Hi Shel,

I agree with the definition but think it will be not that new for some of us in PR.

We are used to put people in contact with each other, make connections, getting everyone around the same table...

As a PR Manager for the last 10 years I do collaborate with customers, prospects & partners. Sure we also do "media relations" but that's only a part of the job.

Next to being the "island of serenity" during times of crisis, we do link the right people up with our contacts inside the organisation and vice versa.

I have never seen my job different than what I just described and am certain I am not alone here in Europe, or the US for that matter.

Looking forward to meet you at Les Blogs on Monday. Enjoy Paris in the meantime !