Role of Public Relations-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about a Case Study about an Organization dealt with Reputation Risk. Answer: Public Relations A crisis is any situation that compromises the integrity or reputation of an organization. In relation, this is where the concept of public relation joins the conversation. Public relations is the discipline which takes charge of looking after a companys reputation with the primary objective of understanding, supporting as well as influencing opinion and behavior. Also, public relations can be defined as a social science used in identifying and analyzing new trends, predicting their impacts on an organization, effectively counseling corporation leaders and also establishing planned action lineups aimed at serving both the publics and the organizations interest. Every crisis situation is normally unique and hence requires a customized system of response. The primary focus of this report is to efficiently analyze key lessons that can be derived from public relation crisis. The report is directed to the Chief Executive Officer from my department as the Corporate Reputation Manager. Background of the issue The genesis of the crisis is traced from when a teenage girl, named Cassey Syler went out for shopping and paid a visit to one of the fashion stores in South Carolina with the hopes of purchasing a new wallet. In her words, immediately she walked into the fashion store doorway, an appointed saleswoman in the shop allegedly called one of the colleagues a shoplifter. The crisis escalated more intensely since Casey race was black. In connection, Caseys mother, a successful blogger known as Rene shared her daughters ordeal and experience on her Facebook platform. As you can imagine, virally exploded within a day and in return, this prompted an appropriate counter measure retaliation response from the fashion store of Carolina Girls on their Facebook page as well. Carolina Girls organizations assessment of the reputation issue The crisis, however, initiated a further controversial scenario in another second phrase. True to say, had the crisis been left there after the public apology, the fire would have been quickly extinguished (Claeys Cauberghe 2015, P. 70). On the contrary, later on, Carolina Girls put up a further Facebook post claiming that an intensified investigation had exposed the fact that there was no evidence pointing out that such remarks had been made and rather pinned the fault on the teenage shoppers that were in the store at that particular time. The logic behind the store's assessment is that it was the very first time such a crisis had hit the store and hence because they had a brand image to protect, it was not completely possible for one of its employees to have made such comments (Brynley-Jones Brynley-Jones 2017). The post as expected pocked a hornets nest that was already settled. Role of public relations in developing the organizational response In this case, the public relations segment of the organization failed in their role since their primary objective should have been to establish and maintain positive relationships with any given third party (Harvey Sealy 2016, p. 60). The lack of an efficient company response can be credited to the failure by the companys Public relation department which is also a key component in analyzing this case study. The result of the Organizations response As a reaction technique, the stores page was attacked with precarious comments from across the state. Subsequently, many of the comments were so severe that they had to be brought down by the sites administration. In relation, to compound what they had now accepted as the mistake they had done in mishandling the crisis, Carolina Girls had to delete their Facebook profile to prevent further damage. The acting CEO of the store attracted further negative publicity to the crisis when she spoke to a news channel. Stephanie Davies claimed that the organization had made several attempts to find a midpoint through setting up a meeting with Rene Syler and her daughter with no avail. It is unfortunate that the damage had already escalated and that the interview only succeeded in drawing more and more online ridicule. Workable Recommendations for the future Several crucial lessons can be learned from the Carolina Girls social media crisis being that our corporation belongs to same industry as Carolina Girls. One fundamental lesson is that the old ideology that the customer is always on the right is as valid as today as it has been throughout the years (Helm Tolsdorf 2013, p. 150). It is important for a corporation to acknowledge that no matter how confident it is that the client was on the wrong and hence at fault, counter claims, denials as well as buck passing are the social media correspondent of an independent grenade (Kim Sung 2014, p. 85). Initially, Carolina Girls effectively managed the crisis by publicly apologizing as well as making attempts to reach the aggrieved party at a private angle (Akram 2017, p. 231). However, later on, they inexplicably inflamed the already intensified situation by insisting to pin the blame on its customers and also censoring negative comments about the customers rather than positively engaging with the already angered online population. In addition, deleting its Facebook page was a mistake since the act was similar to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand while expecting a pride of lions closing in not to see it and hence was a major mistake (Jin, Liu Austin 2014, p. 85). The most appropriate technique to counter such an issue is to be transparent and contrite from the very beginning. Also, withdraw the issue from the public domain as much as possible as well as ensure that the response made by the firm is satisfactory enough from the customers angle (Brynley-Jones Brynley-Jones 20 17). If this is not sufficiently done, the organization risks a full scale fire that will automatically be a giant task to extinguish and hence could irreparably damage the companys brand which we have all worked tirelessly hard to build. References Akram, S., 2017. The Impact Of User-Generated and Organizations Information and Sympathy Based Crisis Response Strategies on Organizational Reputation and Secondary Crisis Communication: A Case on University of Management And Technology, Lahore.Science International,29(1), Pp.231-231. Beldad, A.D., Hegner, S.M. and van Laar, E., 2017. Proactive Crisis Communication When Precrisis Reputation Is Rotten? The Moderating Roles of Precrisis Reputation and Crisis Type in the Relationship Between Communication Timing and Trust and Purchase Intention. InCreating Marketing Magic and Innovative Future Marketing Trends(pp. 679-684). Springer, Cham. Brynley-Jones, L. and Brynley-Jones, L. (2017).6 Examples of Social Media Crises: What can we learn? - Our Social Times - Social Media for Business. [online] Our Social Times - Social Media for Business. Available at: https://oursocialtimes.com/6-examples-of-social-media-crises-what-can-we-learn/ [Accessed 17 Aug. 2017]. Claeys, A.S. and Cauberghe, V., 2015. The role of a favorable pre-crisis reputation in protecting organizations during crises.Public Relations Review,41(1), pp.64-71. Coombs, W.T., 2014.Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Sage Publications. 13(2), pp.91-100. Harvey, W.S. and Sealy, R., 2016. Building HR's reputation. Helm, S. and Tolsdorf, J., 2013. How does corporate reputation affect customer loyalty in a corporate crisis?.Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management,21(3), pp.144-152. Jin, Y., Liu, B.F. and Austin, L.L., 2014. Examining the role of social media in effective crisis management: The effects of crisis origin, information form, and source on publics crisis responses.Communication research,41(1), pp.74-94. Kim, S. and Sung, K.H., 2014. Revisiting the effectiveness of base crisis response strategies in comparison of reputation management crisis responses.Journal of Public Relations Research,26(1), pp.62-78.