Discussions, doodles, diatribes

I have been traveling much more often for business than I had in the past. The majority of the travel originates from Chicago so I have my choice of two airports and multiple carriers. I admit that I am not especially brand loyal to any specific airline and often choose the best price, flight times and routes to my destination. Because of that, I am a member of multiple “air miles” programs but really don’t pay much attention to the programs because my miles are stretched throughout those multiple airlines.

My most recent travels took me on multiple legs and multiple carriers from Chicago to Seattle then to Portland and back to Chicago (via MSP). The flights were smooth and worry free until my final two legs — operated by Delta Airlines (#deltaairlines, @deltaairlines).  To make a long story short, an in-aircraft malfunction (broken overhead compartment cover) delayed my redeye flight causing me to miss my Minneapolis connection. This is where my service story begins.

For those that know me, I’m a stickler for customer service. I expect high levels, praise for the levels and document when customer service fails. This was a failure. As with most airlines, an announcement was made on the aircraft apologizing for the late arrival saying a gate agent was prepared to assist those of us with missed connections and to stop at the gate upon exit for information. With a large DC-9, the personalized attention one gate agent can be expected to give is minimal, although details should be listened to. I asked the gate agent about my flight to Chicago O’Hare scheduled to depart at 7:05 am (it was 7:05 am). He said it’s at the gate and directed me to a gate. He directed me to the gate, to a flight that had already departed and a gate agent that had already left. Failure number 1. I then went to another gate where I was told to go to the “service center” located a few gates down. There I encountered service failure number 2. I went to the automated kiosk and scanned my boarding pass and was told I was rebooked on a flight leaving at 11am. I was surprised I was booked on a flight leaving 4 hours later so I stood in line for the gate agent.

I encountered a clearly-not-so-happy customer service agent named Gay S. (at least that’s what her nametag said). I would expect that the employees assigned to these service centers would be the best of the best — knowing that those coming to them are probably experiencing issues related to a flight. When it was my turn, she turned away from me and picked up the phone saying to the person on the other line that “she was being hung out to dry here” and “must have some other issue other than the Atlanta flight coming in late.” This showed me that she didn’t care about the customer and Delta clearly didn’t care about delayed passengers by not knowing of this other flight issue.

After coming in off a delayed red-eye, not the response a passenger wants. I was told that I should have just scanned my ticket because I was already rebooked on the 10am flight (it was 7:15am). I told them that that couldn’t be the next flight to Chicago. She said “well you just missed a midway flight” and the other flight is oversold at 9am. I asked about being put on that flight and she said I could be on standby but “other standby passengers would be given preference to board.” I asked for further compensation and she said I could get a meal voucher. She then didn’t give it to me and I inquired again and was very rude and said “give me your boarding pass so I can do this paperwork.” She gave me no explanation of where I could use it, what it was worth, etc. I then proceeded to the 9am flight gate and waited about 45 minutes for someone to show up. Jeff Shanley (as his badge said) arrived and told me how much the voucher was worth but then reiterated that there was really nothing he could do to get me on that flight and I just had to wait. I had had no food, nothing to drink and had been up for 24 hours at that point. I was irritable and angry. I went to get some food and sat. He was cordial and did get me onto the flight. I still feel like I received no help from Delta except when I pushed the issue.

When I returned home I tweeted that I had an issue with Delta and waited until Monday morning to determine how to best resolve the issue. I received a response back from Delta to “email customer service” and there wasn’t a way to get someone to call me. So I filled out their form online and waited. I inquired the following day and was told to “be patient” and call the customer service phone number if I wanted a quicker response. I did and was on hold for quite a while. I didn’t hold.

Every day I waited. Every day I tweeted. Every day I hoped for a response. This morning I received a response. The response recapped my situation and Pauline P. Gomes from Customer Care apologized for the issues. And then, at the end of the e-mail it said this:

Further, as a gesture of apology for our flight delay and the unsatisfactory customer service you endured at the airport, I have added
5,500 bonus miles to your SkyMiles account.  Please allow three business days for the miles to appear.

In all honesty, I have no idea what that does to assist me. Looking at my Delta SkyMiles account, she should see that I have little action on the account and, therefor, additional miles has no meaning to me, or incentive, or recovery for Delta’s lack of service.

When service hiccups occur, recovery should be at a level to encourage a customer to:

a. feel comfortable about the organization

b. be confident in recommending that company/organization for their service

c. discourage bad blood/public disgruntlement of the situation

d. provide enough incentive for the customer to want to use the service/organization again

Looking at each of these elements and the response/recovery I received from Delta, nothing has changed. In fact, because the recovery was so little/means nothing to me, the consumer, I’d say my feelings toward Delta are worse than they were prior to the response.

So, Delta, thanks for giving me the fodder for not only multiple tweets but an updated blog post. I encourage you to correct this and maybe call me, you have my number. It amazes me that, in the form letter from Pauline, she states “Our office does not have the capacity to make calls or receive calls from customers.” I have a feeling they could call someone if they wanted to do so. It is clear that their training is lacking not only on the ground, but also in a corporate environment.

I’ve also attached the picture of the maintenance man trying to fix the overhead compartment – at least he apologized for stepping on the lady in the row, the co-pilot didn’t.

Maintenance at 1:30 am trying to fix a panel on my PDX redeye flight.

Delta, I look forward to hearing from you.

By the way, thanks to those companies that do an outstanding job correcting service issues — applause goes to UPS and Amazon for their service recovery training and implementation.

Until next time…

Update: Monday, June 21. I received another e-mail from Delta (Pauline P. Gomes) with this response:

Thank you for writing and allowing me the opportunity to further review
your concerns.  On behalf of Delta Air Lines, I am genuinely sorry you
were dissatisfied with my response.

The gesture I extended was not meant to place a value on your
experience; rather it was an attempt to make amends for your
disappointment with our service.  Respectfully, additional
considerations would not be due.  I am sorry to disappoint you, as I
understand this is not the answer you were expecting.

Mr. Blemker, again, I apologize.  Your support as a valued SkyMiles
member is important to us, and I thank you for your additional time and
effort.  We look forward to the privilege of serving your air travel
needs again soon.

Delta (and Pauline’s chastising of my situation) shows a clear misunderstanding of how to provide proper service.

Updated again: 8:47am 6/21

Paula responded again after I asked how this provided any incentive to travel with Delta again.

Thank you for your most recent communication expressing your continued
dissatisfaction with my response.  On behalf of Delta Air Lines, I
apologize that I have been unable to offer a satisfactory resolution.

I am genuinely sorry it was necessary for you to write again.  I was
concerned that I missed the purpose of your communication so I reviewed
your comments with my Supervisor.  After a lengthy discussion, there is
no further action that would be due as a result of your experience.
Again, I am sorry to disappoint you, as I understand this is not the
answer you were expecting.

Mr. Blemker, again, I am sorry your travel was unsatisfactory.  I hope
in time you will provide us with another opportunity to restore your
confidence.

Sincerely,

Pauline P. Gomes
Coordinator, Customer Care
Delta Air Lines/KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

I am particularly concerned about her comment saying “in time” I might give Delta another chance. However, Delta has provided absolutely no incentive for me to. What is my benefit to travel with them again? Why would I want to? They clearly realize that I have no confidence in their service or their company.

Update: June 22, 11:56am CST

Delta has evidently told me to leave them alone. Great service.

Dear Mr. Blemker,

RE: Case Number 575487

Thank you for your latest communication.  On behalf of Delta Air Lines,
I apologize, again, for your frustration.

I understand your continued disappointment.  I once again apologize for
the poor customer service you encountered at the gate and recognize that
this experience formed a negative impression which cannot be wiped off
easily.  I am truly sorry we cannot provide you with the name and
information of our supervisor.  After additional consideration, I regret
we have been unable to resolve this matter to your satisfaction.

We hope you can make the decision to move forward from this event.  With
regret, I must respectfully deny your request and advise that we will
not be responding to this matter again.

Mr. Blemker, thank you for your valuable time in following up on this
matter.  Please know we will make every attempt to provide future
service that earns your respect and confidence.

Sincerely,

Steve P. Simon
Care Specialist, Customer Care
Delta Air Lines/KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

I’m actually amazed that I’ve been told to basically “get over it” from Delta. Wow.

Updated: June 22 1:41 pm

So I got a response to my blog from a woman that seemed very unsympathetic to my cause. Because of openness in the blogosphere I thought I would share and approve without any problem. I believe open discussion is key to solving issues. However, I decided I would post the entire approval section so you, the reader, can see the post didn’t come from an unsympathetic reader – it came from an unsympathetic Delta employee using a hidden gmail address.

Author : Jane Haysmith (IP: 205.174.22.26 , proxy-http1.delta.com)
E-mail : jane.haysmith@gmail.com
URL    :
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=205.174.22.26
Comment:
Seems the airline apologized for your inconvenience and the less than stellar
attitude you encountered. What do you feel they 'owe' you? They aren't going to bump
another ticketed passenger to put you on the next flight. They are going to put you
on the first flight they can confirm and let you stand by for the rest.

I admit, I am a newbie to Twitter. I am trying to learn to update my status, retweet and follow people. I am being followed mostly by people I know and oddly by some I do not. I just don’t really understand the purpose, but I’m starting to… a bit.

Anyone that knows me knows I have a love for all things Amazon.com. Amazon has been good for me and I am always happy at the speediness by which I receive my packages. Yesterday, however, was an exception.

Being in Chicago in a secure building, UPS has to either buzz my unit or find someone else home to let them into the vestebule to leave packages. I was waiting for UPS yesterday. Evidently the driver came but didn’t try very hard to deliver the package. After a phone call and a conversation with a rather nasty UPS supervisor Linda, I was lacking a resolution to my package dilemma. So I tweeted about it (twitted?twit?).

To my surprise, within a few minutes of my tweet, I received a message on Twitter from UPS saying that they wanted to help. The message included an e-mail address and instructions for follow-up. I was amazed.

Thinking I had discovered part of Twitter’s true purpose, I was ecstatic. I sent my e-mail to UPS and waited. Not to bog down this post with details, I continued trying to track down my package while talking to the unusually harsh and unfriendly Linda at UPS.

I waited. I sent more tweets. I waited. Then I left for an afternoon meeting.

About an hour later UPS called. They resolved the situation and have continued to ensure I have issues taken care of when anything occurs – including some recent packages being stolen from my building.

I still don’t understand Twitter but UPS seems to be playing part of the game but fell short on follow up. Is it better for a company to reach out to a customer almost instantaneously yet fail to follow up or not reach out at all?

Twitter seems to be a great possible tool for quick outreach and immediate communication. I wish I knew what to do with it myself.

During the past few days I’ve had some interesting experiences related to my job search — two wonderful and inspiring meetings, an interview setup, a form e-mail that wasn’t supposed to be to me and a harsh reality check from a paid career counselor.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I try to learn as much as I can from each experience so I still gain knowledge even when presented with a negative outcome. Before I write about the good of this week, I want to start with the not-so-good.

Not-so-good story 1: Pride yourself on being personal, but be just the opposite

In addition to traditional job searching, I have been exploring aspects of freelancing and temp jobs to make extra money. Although this is yet to be financially fruitful, I have learned quite a bit in the process and hope to continue to grow that knowledge.

I applied to work for a local creative services organization that prides itself, according to its Web site, as being different and developing strong personal relationships, investing themselves in their clients and talent, and being defined by respect, hard work, honesty and integrity. I was pretty excited to place myself in the pool of this organization’s talent. This organization is focused on designers, illustrators, print production managers, art directors, Flash and Web designers and the like. Each of those item I have experience in.

I was somewhat taken aback when I received this e-mail from them after submitting my information:

However, after reviewing your resume it doesn’t appear that we have anything to match your particular strengths and qualifications. We are highly specialized in the types of talent we represent. For the most part, the bulk of our talent come from design, production and account backgrounds, with an emphasis on interactive and print experience.

Woah. What? Huh? In addition to this being a form letter, what happened to personal connections and relationships. So I called them. I spoke with Katie, not the original person sending the e-mail. She promised she would have Leah get back to me with why I received this e-mail. About two hours later, Katie e-mailed me back saying my account was “accidentally mis-marked as not compatible.” I understand with the current economy that job inquiries are increasing and the process is becoming more demanding for the recruiters and HR professionals. However, someone messed up. This was not only a confusing response but also one that locked me out of future opportunities with the company. I applaud Katie for correcting it but still wonder why Leah hasn’t reached out to me to fulfill the organizations connection to establishing personal relationships.

By the way, this job site has 20 open positions listed. Very exciting. Very hopeful for the job seeker. However, also mentioned in the e-mail was that those jobs aren’t really available, they are on hold and may never be funded by the clients. Way to get my hopes up!

Not-so-good story 2: Local Chicago recruiter and paid “career expert” tells me to “find whatever.”

As a job seeker I am trying every option to get a job — networking, job posting, personal calls and e-mails, recruiters and the career counselor. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered like any “purchased product” job advice from career counselors should be marked caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware). Unlike consumer products, these paid sessions do not have a warranty and by no means seem to guarantee any success.

This person offers a program that touts itself as “One-on-One Consultation to Help You Conquer the Changing Job Market.” In addition, her materials mention being empowered and receiving personal attention giving and information necessary to get a job in this market. During this meeting, the person, who is also a recruiter in the industry, provided me a packet of information that any job seeker would find online by searching for job search tools or job search advice. Initially, I thought my money was well spent, she started off giving me materials, good idea. As the meeting progressed, I became very aware that she had not made herself familiar with my experiences or my resume. She made a comment similar to “why would you want to look for jobs in entertainment or cultural areas, everyone wants that, you don’t want to be like everyone.” My answer, which received a surprising blank stare from this expert, was: “Well, I tend to gravitate toward that because of seven years in entertainment. I have that experience, that’s why.”

As the meeting continued, I was confused and bewildered with the lack of specific ways that I could find a job. I don’t know any job seeker that doesn’t realize the importance of networking, an elevator speech or business cards in the search. I didn’t expect to hear it from someone I was paying for individual advice based on her experience in the industry.

At the end of the session, she asked me whether I was more excited or overwhelmed. I replied “disappointed.” Now her service offers follow-up and inclusion into her database of job seekers for jobs she’s recruiting for at the time. I understand she doesn’t guarantee a job, but I expected more. I learned at Disney that everyone expects to be treated like an individual. I definitely did not feel like an individual.

This session occurred a few months ago so I had sent her a follow-up message last week to let her know I was still job searching and would be open to additional advice. This was her response: “Find whatever work you can, even if it’s outside your discipline.”

Thanks. I feel empowered.

Great story 1: Connection surprises me with possible perfect mix of skills and interests

I like to let everyone know what I like doing. I like doing many things and am pretty good at quite a few of them. I never know when someone might here of an opportunity for me to use my skills and maybe be financially rewarded. I had a meeting Friday with a contact of mine that I didn’t really even know what he did, but it’s pretty darn cool.  We met while I was looking to move to Chicago and he was pretty instrumental in helping me secure a place in the city – for that reason, my traditional networking prowess became a bit skewed. I should probably blame myself for not pursuing this contact earlier, but I don’t think either of us connected the dots initially – or at least I didn’t.

Anyway, we met Friday and I told him my stories, my interests and my experience. He told me his. Lightbulbs and flashing lights were going off in my head (as well as one of those big cartoon hammers knocking me over and over asking me why I didn’t look into this more). After my week of being told I wasn’t a fit for certain jobs and being told a few weeks ago that I really need to decide on one thing I want to do or I won’t find anything, this was a breath of fresh air.

This person has ideas. He sees my strengths and my weaknesses. He knows I have much to learn about this industry but also much to give to it. He understands that multiple skills can be overwhelming and that success can come in small bits. He sees that I may not be able to show everyone everything initially but knows that when I am able to combine my strengths with an industry that needs those, I will be a success.

Although I don’t know exactly what might come of this in the future, this was sure empowering.

Great story 2: “People need your skills.”

Friday was a great day. To be empowered by one person then told by another that “people really need my skills” is a great way to go from Debbie Downer to a power player.

Because this post is getting long, I am going to abbreviate my last story (but will probably revisit it in a future post). My luncheon meeting with an expert and experienced leader at one of the largest public relations firms in the nation became an afternoon of talking shop, shows and opportunities. He took me back to his office, showed me around and spent almost four hours of his Friday afternoon giving me more advice and guidance.

Although he sees great potential in me in the traditional workplace, he also sees my skills for what they can bring to a company as a freelancer. His points empowered me as well:

• Don’t sell yourself short, people need you.
• Make people understand they need you. Put it in perspective for them.
• Continue learning. Continue your reading. Embrace the knowledge.
• Don’t stop doing what you enjoy doing (for me, it is building puppets and loving theatre).
• Meet people outside your job interests yet always keep your skills at the forefront (you might find they need you).

What a great Friday.

Spending time job searching is often monotonous, sometimes disheartening and depressing and rarely positive. These two wonderful people I met with Friday gave me back the positive. Everyone needs to be able to experience that feeling sooner than later. I assume getting a job would be a positive experience for me as well.

In 1996, I had the opportunity to hear Helen Thomas (formerly of UPI) speak while attending a journalism conference in Washington, D.C. One statement she said has stuck with me through all those years and has provided inspiration for my life:

“Be voracious in your quest for knowledge, learn as much as you can, do as much as you can, experience as much as you can. Journalists don’t just need to know how to write, they need to know so much more.”

Well, more than 10 years later, multiple degrees later and many jobs later, I have started pondering that statement — not the statement itself, but the outcome of living by that statement. In my job search quest, I have spoken to many wonderful people, listened to many words of advice and challenged those telling me to “just find a job anywhere.” The one question, overpowering in almost every conversation, and yet unanswered succinctly is:

“But what do you do?”

My response is sometimes more confusing than the question itself. Then, following more discussion, the quizzical and conundrumical (if that’s a word) looks are replaced with statements of affirmation about my skills and desires to use my skills and passions in my field. Sometimes misunderstood, I believe a passion is different than a skill, which is different than my field. My passion is education, the arts and nonprofits. My skills are more tactical — design, writing, editing, new media, etc. The list really does go on and on. But my field of interest, and this is the real key to all these questions, is communications.

Attention job seekers, HR professionals, recruiters and hiring managers: there are differences between skills, passions and field of interest. My resume and experience proves that. Some quest for the holy grail, I have a quest to help people understand those differences. Because once they do, I’m sure I’ll have a job. (I hope.)

The transferable skills

I think I was meant to be the poster child for transferable skills. So much so that when I was at Disney I was hired to teach a Youth Education Series program about career paths and the importance of transferable skills. I was told that was the class that was the “best fit for me.” Part of me would like to teach that course to recruiters and hiring leaders.

In short, a transferable skill is a task broken down to its simplest form that can be applied from one job to another or one industry to another or from home to work, wherever. A transferable skill is something you know how to do and can do it at more than one place. For example, because I was trained to teach this class at Disney, I developed stronger facilitation and speaking skills. I don’t have to be teaching a class to draw on those skills. I can use those skills when I talk on the phone, negotiate a contract, run a meeting, lead a presentation, etc.

The challenge with transferable skills is that they are often misunderstood and not easily translated in the job search. Career service professionals, however, continue to push the importance. I don’t disagree. However, when applying for a job, if those transferable skills are not outwardly apparent to the recruiter and immediately translated as a keyword for the job database, your chance is over.

For me, the more I tweak, rearrange, reword and re-evaluate my resume, the more difficulty I have in determining where I fit for the algorithms controlling my success in the computer-aided hiring world. That is one reason why I believe so strongly in the value of networking and individualized attention during the job search.

A transferable field

Maybe my world of transferable skills is simply based on my field of choice: communications, more specifically public relations. Anyone in public relations understands the confusion, misconception and broad-based definition the term public relations has. And most outside the field really don’t know exactly what public relations is. Even I was told I didn’t.

In a field that has so many aspects to it (planning, management, strategic communication, writing, design, image management, events, etc.) and done in in-house at some organizations and at agencies for others, the basic profile of a “public relations professional” is skewed. So transferring experiences that are sometimes placed as guest relations, or marketing, or event coordinator or whatever it may be can easily get lost in translation by those looking for the best candidate for a job.

I understand the necessity to be systematically control the influx of resumes and job inquiries by using computers and I understand the time allotted to reading resumes (I’ve hired staffs of people before, I understand.). There must be a better way to be able to let those like me (and I’m sure many others) with varied experiences break through the noise and be heard.

The passion factor

Like many, I am often more energized and more excited to do something related to my passions. Because I am passionate about education, cultural institutions, nonprofits and the entertainment industry, I tend to gravitate toward those areas. The further away from those passions, the less excited I am about the experience. That does not mean, however, that my success in the workplace is based on whether I am fulfilling one of my passions at work.

Most people’s passions thread throughout their life – not just their career. I’m the same way. I want it to be a part of what I enjoy. If I am not able to fulfill my passionate desires at work, I tend to be more involved with my hobby of puppet making. It creates a balance. The job is part of that balance and so is my hobby.

The next step

During this time of reflection (out of work, unemployed and job searching) I am continuing to let Helen Thomas’ words grow inside me. I will admit I don’t spend 40+ hours on the job search alone as this blog seems to suggest, because I want to better myself in the process. Jason Alba has a great blog and I added some comments to that blog so I hope you’ll see how I justified my feelings.

I have continued to read blogs and books about social media (that’s one reason I’m trying to update this blog more), taken online classes and tutorials to increase my Adobe Creative Suite skills (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) and develop a stronger understanding of word of mouth marketing as well as SEO/SEM writing. All things that I want to know but things I can’t easily add to my resume.

Whenever I am hired somewhere, I hope the company appreciates my desire to learn and grow and develop a wide variety of skills, not just one subset of life. I was recently told that I wouldn’t ever find a job until I “pulled the trigger and decided on one thing.” Maybe I’m off base, but I feel like pulling the trigger on one thing may cause me to shoot myself in the foot, or worse yet, the heart (passions) or brain (skills).

Until then, thanks Helen Thomas. Your words were well received.

After the recent announcement that United Airlines will be closing overseas call centers that dealt with immediate customer compaints, I began thinking about the fine lines (yet often overlooked lines) between customer (guest) service and public relations. Some insist they should be completely separate entities, some believe they have no real similarities, some believe they are all the same. I believe, in most situations, effective customer (guest) service is a well-delivered public relations strategy – in ANY organization.

For clarification purposes, I tend to use the term “guest” when speaking of clients or customers or the like. This originates from my almost five years in Guest Relations with the Walt Disney Company. I hope this post doesn’t jump around too much but there are many cross-points I want to convey.

Guest service influences public relations practices

Like many consumers, I am much more likely to speak negatively about an organization when I am provided poor customer service. I had a recent experience with RCN that epitomizes poor customer service and I will never recommend their Internet service to anyone. When I have good/customary service, I am less likely to have a strong opinion about a company. However, when I am provided extraordinary service naturally, I am definitely one to sing the praises of a company. This idea is one of the tenets of effective word of mouth marketing: great experiences lead to conversations about a company, which leads to increased interest, which leads to stronger sales, clicks, whatever.

This is where public relations is an important piece of this puzzle. Every company should strive to be seen positively by those interacting with the company (its publics). When one piece fails in its communication, that trickle down of negativity changes the attitude at every level and will influence press coverage, investor feelings, customer commitment and loyalty and general consumer understanding of the entity in question. Isn’t this what public relation’s role is? Yes, the role is to ensure that the communication with every public is positively portrayed and, if necessary, proactively and reactively adjusted depending on the situation.

Why is customer satisfaction important?

From the unfortunately now-defunct White House Office of Consumer Affairs and reprinted in a military powerpoint presentation, the following research shows why customer satisfaction is important and how it directly relates to the job of public relations professionals:

• A typical business only hears from 4 percent of the dissatisfied customers. The remaining 96 percent just go away with 91 percent never coming back.
• It costs five to six times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.
• Customer loyalty can be up to ten times greater than the cost of a single purchase that customer might make.
• Customers with immediately resolved complaints will tell four to six people about it, but dissatisfied customers will tell around 15 people with many telling more than 20.
• For every one complaint, there are 26 more not heard and four of those are serious complaints.
• It takes 12 new positive interactions with a dissatisfied customer to rebuild trust and loyalty to an organization.

United Airlines doesn’t seem to get it.

In the United Airlines story, United executives mentioned that customers that wrote letters were more satisfied with the responses than those on the phone. I would like to see the whole picture. I wish I had the research handy because I’ve read it before but don’t know the specifics. In general, people are more likely to take the perceivably quickest, most effective outlet for a resolution of a complaint. Most likely with the airlines, this would be the counter agent at the airline. From my understanding, this agent would request the consumer call a “complaint line” based in an overseas call center. This should have many red flags for any public relations professional  (published negativity about overseas call centers, naming the call center a complaint line, etc). I am assuming this line had preset responses to the most common airline complaints. When a challenge wasn’t in the “playbook” the customer was probably asked to write or send an e-mail. At that point, the situation is already escalated. Those consumers choosing to take the time to write are only a small percentage of the total number of the complaints that United deserves to be aware of and resolve. At Disney there were different levels of determining compensation, like in many organizations. We tried our best to evaluate a situation completely, without pointing fingers or placing blame, and provide the guest with the best possible resolve. If we couldn’t, and sometimes we couldn’t, a guest was given information to write a letter to guest communications. The number of guests receiving those cards were minimal compared to the number of guests with resolved situations. United is probably being very transparent by saying those that wrote were more satisfied. Yes, of course they are. More time is dedicated to resolving an escalated complaint than one of immediate necessity. One of Disney’s key service guidelines is to provide immediate guest service recovery.

The consumers with problems not resolved will let United know, even without a phone line or letter

What will happen to the countless number of consumers that are unable to immediately resolve their issues and are unwilling to write or e-mail? What about when the e-mail or letter takes weeks to resolve? That answer seems pretty easy: word of mouth will take over. Through blogs, tweets, help forums, Facebook and just general conversations, problems stemming from an unresolved (could be very minor) situation will be expanded, forwarded, told over and over and, in turn, negatively influence public perceptions and attitudes about United Airlines.

Public relations professionals are clamoring to learn social media skills, word of mouth marketing, search engine marketing and optimization skills. This is why. Consumers are doing it. Unfortunately some consumers are unaware of the differences between a credible news site, a blog or a company information site. Because of this, information is flying through consumers heads — some of which is factual, some of which is completely erroneous. Therefore, companies are working hard to focus how their information gets out and who puts it out and what it says. I’m sure United Airlines and RCN won’t be terribly happy if they read this blog.

This post will have to be continued, this is already more than 1,000 words.

Next: How PR can work more with this idea.

(This is a rewrite of a post that I wrote yesterday and lost after a crash. I feel the first one was much better, but the ideas are the same.)

In a recent job interview I was told that even though I have an undergraduate degree in public relations and a master’s degree in public relations I “don’t know what public relations is.” Look back at that, I wasn’t told that I didn’t have experience in public relations, nor was I told that I didn’t know how to do public relations, I was told “I don’t know what public relations is.” This interviewer went on to discuss a few points that I will be elaborating on:

• Just learning things in school doesn’t mean you know how to do it.
• Public relations is about the press and sending out press releases. You don’t know what public relations is.
• You don’t know the specifics about the industry, so you fail this interview.

Again, I feel like I need to stress, the list above is not my opinion but statements made by an interviewer in an upper level marketing and communications position.

Interviewer statement: “Just learning things in school doesn’t mean you know how to do it.”

Although this statement has some truth to it, making such a blanket comment in an interview seems harmful to me. I will be the first to admit that sometimes I think “theories” are phooey but not all school is theory based. At the institutions I have taught college-level courses, most of the classes are based on teaching very practical skills that any professional in communications careers must have a good grasp. Having a certificate in college and university teaching plus quite a few years in the workplace, I understand that college students must be exposed to a mix of academia and professional. Luckily every program I’ve been a part of has that mix.

As for the truth to this statement, college does not teach some of the necessary skills that everyone in the workplace learns — management leadership, true experienced feedback and consequences on work quality. I unfortunately don’t know if someone saying the blanket statement above would be the best one to teach those skills to a new graduate. On the other hand, both my undergraduate and graduate schools had student run public relations agencies, newspapers, magazines and advertising programs focused on teaching some of the necessary practical skills before students enter the workforce. In addition, every school I’ve taught at has had strong internship programs.

College cannot teach everything, but does teach the skills, ideas and elements necessary for an entry-level professional.

Interviewer statement: “Public relations is about the press and sending out press releases, you don’t know what public relations is.”

Public relations is changing, as it has been since its inception. Simply working to get a story published or send press releases has never been a standard definition of public relations. Even in its infancy, Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee used events, image building and press to change different publics’ ideas from their clients. Public relations continues to change very quickly with the growth of word-of-mouth image-building activities, search engine optimization and Web site writing changes and social media expansion.

I am amazed that a marketing and communications leader in an industry that is being challenged as much or more than others because of the current economic climate still considers public relations to just be about press agentry.

Because of this statement, I took this as an opportunity to question my own opinion. I called some of the journalists that were key to this industry and researched the changes within the newspaper industry. Having a degree in journalism and having worked for newspapers, I enjoy looking at both sides of the communication spectrum. (By the way, I believe every public relations professional should have journalism experience.) The journalists I talked to mentioned that this industry I was interviewing in needed to do a lot more to get coverage. These journalists mentioned that the current practice of press releases and static headshots would severly hinder the coverage as other industries push good stories and events that directly compete with what a standard newspaper has space for. The journalists, who work for large metropolitan papers, mentioned that more emphasis must be put on social media, bloggers and more interactive elements to help build more public knowledge and interest.

Unfortunately, I am worried that this leader is harming the organization by refusing to understand the expansive possibilities of public relations and well-strategized communication plans.

Interviewer statement: “You don’t know the specifics of the industry, so you fail this interview.”

I believe there is a reason that careers skills are taught and, in turn, chosen based on skills (engineering, medicine, communications, art, etc) and not industry. An industry, however specialized, can be learned. As an example, when I was hired to work at Walt Disney World and started at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, I knew little about the property itself. I knew that I was a good communicator, I liked to help people and I enjoyed going out of my way to make people happy. That is why I was hired. During the first few months of working there, I learned the intricacies of the property — the story of the property, opening day, number of rooms, amenities, fun facts, etc. This was taught and I reached out to learn more and more.

Fast forward to the interview that prompted this blog post. Like any interview, I did my research about the company, about the publics it served, how it communicated, etc. This industry is a sub industry of a larger industry and I did not know all the facts of the larger industry, something I assumed I would learn during normal day-to-day operations. Well, I was asked, no, I was drilled on these facts (numbers, finances, etc). When I couldn’t effectively answer the questions, I was told I failed. I am still amazed that a communications and marketing leader would tell a potential employee that they “failed.” As I have also taught human resource management and organizational behavior, this behavior seems intolerable to me.

Self-reflection: “Did I fail?”

In every experience I have, I believe a life lesson is taught and experiences are gained, regardless of the outcome. Did I fail? No. This process taught me quite a bit about perceptions and generalities in an industry that I have enjoyed both personally and professionally.

This taught me that those in upper level positions in communications and marketing still are challenged to fully understand the opportunities that can be achieved using public relations on all levels.

This taught me that perceptions about an organization can be completely re-aligned by having a negative experience with an employee of that organization. Whether this leader meant to or not, her negative attitude and testy interviewing techniques has fully changed my perception from great to horrible. And with how word of mouth works, I will probably share that with those I feel should know about it. I do not believe this blog is the appropriate platform to share the specifics of the organization.

This taught me that as much as I prepare and follow what I believe are the guidelines for interviews, curve balls always exist.

This taught me that I continue to have an uphill battle helping people understand how eight years in the professional arena coupled with two and a half years in graduate school equals many, many skills that are worthwhile to an organization. In addition, I have learned that going back to school to “refocus” your career interests isn’t quite yet understood by industry professionals.

Ok, back to the job search. I’m sure I’ve hit some buttons with this post. I’d love to see comments.

Today’s job searchers are inundated with suggestions, comments, ideas and “helpful hints” to being successful in a job search — or at least I am.  And throughout my frustrations, some of which were posted here and here, the basic idea that the “rules” that used to be in place for job searchers has changed is becoming clearer every day. Almost everyone continues to push the benefits of networking and the importance of taking networking to a higher level in today’s job search environment — almost everyone except Kyra Kyles in an editorial at the Chicago Tribune. Unusually, this article is titled “How you can find a new job (without seeming desperate)” but only seems to focus on why networking has become somewhat nutty — and desperate. Fortunately or unfortunately, the comments related to the article worked to hash out the situations, emotions and challenges facing job seekers today — and the misunderstanding of those not in the middle of the challenges.

I hope, for my sake, that my friends, colleagues and friends of friends continue to support me and the network I am building in this search for a new career in Chicago.

So, in an effort to help build understanding of my skills and interests — and position myself more directly for a position, I redesigned my Web site to give a bit more of a clear, “out there” approach to my talents, interests and desires. Although it is mostly redone, I look forward to hearing comments, suggestions and ideas — especially to help build my network in Chicago.

I am also going to be working to update my design site, puppetry site and teaching information to help those interested in those specific elements understand them more. In addition, I will be launching my thesis research site about nonprofit theatre management in the next few weeks.

I look forward to sharing it with you and hearing your suggestions and advice.

Although I haven’t mentioned it much on here, I would assume almost everyone looking at my site (including this blog) is doing so because I have expressed interest in, or applied for, a position within their organization.

Recently a blog post by Jason Alba at his JibberJobber Blog discussed the average time, based on a study, that job searchers spend on a job search is 10 hours. This post brought up some very emotional responses. In fact, the discussions were so heated that I decided to respond myself (the first time I had ever responded to a blog post). In a set of additional e-mails back and forth with Jason discussing these items,  Jason took his post to the next step to “pay it forward” by helping those still employed to work with, encourage and understand those in an unemployment situation.

I hope all of you will take a moment to read Jason’s post to help understand the challenges facing job seekers and how to encourage those that are currently unemployed.

Thank you to Jason for this post.
How To Help A Job Seeker

Being surrounded by not only academically-focused visual communicators but also leaders in the newspaper design and multimedia presentation fields, I am constantly surprised at the dismissal of the importance of visual communications in other journalism fields. I interact with those from every sequence within our major (news-editorial, magazine, advertising, public relations, secondary education and photo journalism) in my required introductory course to visual communications.

Being visually literate is a skill that everyone, regardless of field, really should possess, but particularly those in a field focused on communicating in different ways and telling stories to different audiences. Public relations folks are journalists whether they like it or not. The field is all about telling stories, regardless of media, through stories themselves, photographs, advertising, PR campaigns, etc. However, I think all too often, especially in our curriculum, students are taught in the upper level graphics courses to visually communicate as graphics reporters – both through print and multimedia techniques. The skills are highly transferable to other fields, but do those in the other fields understand that.

I am currently faced with the daunting task of job searching for the ump-teenth time in my life and fail to understand how many different definitions people in the industry have for journalism, public relations, graphics and the like. What is even more difficult to fathom is that often “mass communication degree” is seen as more understandable to some than the more discipline-specific titles.

Sorry, I digress, back to visual communications…

Two of the major ideas discussed in visual literacy is the ability to make things readable and legible — regardless of their purpose. Although this is discussed and related mostly to typography, I fear some in the industry fail to ask these two simple questions when evaluating any visual material: “Is it legible?” and “Is it readable?”. I don’t even want to get into the question of whether something is aesthetically pleasing for fear the “design is subjective” gods will rain down.

Legibility and readability both relate to ease of use. Can someone look at something in a matter of a few seconds and know the basic premise of what it is? For Web sites, can it load in a few seconds and does the user know where to go within those couple seconds? Even though these concepts are questioned in newsrooms across the country by page designers and Web site designers, other disciplines sometimes forget that we are all serving the same public — ourselves. I often tell my students that it does them no good to pat each other on the back during a critique when, in the critiquer’s mind, that person knows it is not as good as it could be. Then I get it to grade and the student wonders why the score is lower than expected.

I’m sure I’ll continue this discussion, possibly with great examples, but for now I just wish people would look at their visual messages and question the readability and legibility and say “Is it easy to use and understand?”.

Most know that I’m only a couple months away from finishing my thesis and, in turn, receiving my master’s degrees in journalism and public relations from Ball State University.

After spending hours and hours and hours researching relationship management techniques and theories related to organization-public relationship scales coupled with non-profit theatres and their relationships with their publics, I finally submitted the first full draft of my literature review to my committee this evening. Barring any major revisions, this will be the first few chapters of my thesis.

I’m currently working on finding an easy, succinct, yet academically-fulfilling definition of Q methodology. The process is relatively simple but the examination of the factor analysis appears at first glance not to be. I’m relatively statistically illiterate so I will be calling on my colleagues that understand this methodology to provide some assistance.

I have received a number of my Q sort statement sheets back and I hope I can get another 10 to 15 back this week. I only need 20 to get a relatively reliable sort. Fingers crossed.

Let the countdown begin: March 26 is the day I plan on getting it approved and sent on its way.