A cleaning kind of day turned out to be an insighful discovery!

       It is crazy how times flies. Today marks my one month here with Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa, and trust me, I don't even know how or where the time went. Being an award winning resort, it is no doubt Shangri-La has a strong corporate reputation. I am sure it is familiar to us how corporate public relation is co-related to the reputation of the organization.

       What came across interesting to me happen unexpectedly on the day I was cleaning the office of my supervisor, Mrs Claudina. They always say, good things happen to you when you least expecting them. As for me, that was the case. Cleaning might not sound interesting in general but let me show you what I have. It'll be worth your time reading this.

     In the midst of cleaning, I came across old materials like press releases, files and files of crisis management manual and even came across old materials used as promotional purposes. Amongst all that, what caught my attention was this big CID (Corporate identity) file compiled with everything from how the signage of the company letter head should looks like all the way to how the laundry bag in each room should looks like all in one file. That being said, there is guide line down to the very last detail of the resort. Image how much thought and effort must have been put into sustaining their corporate identity!



...Because I am...

 

     Come to think about it, I might never have thought it might be as important, but what I got from this was how much a standardize signage can represent. In order to build a good reputation, the first impression of the company plays an important role. I remember attending class having lessons about corporate image through their signage and how much I can how relate to that now.
    
     Another interesting thing I found was actually in the crisis communication file. I remember how a good PR team is to be able to foresee possible crisis the company should one day face and plan on the best way to deal with it. Yes! It is all in that file, compiled with all the contacts needed such as important contact of different kind of media.

     It is important in a crisis that we are able to identify the problem and be transparent about it. Apologize  and mean it when you need to and I guess that's what I have been observing throughout my time here as an intern. What's most important is a PR team needs to always be ready for anything that comes their way. One crisis that caught you off guard is enough to bring the whole organization down. We all know it might take a short while to gain the trust of someone, but how hard it is to gain it back if you ever lose it. It is almost impossible. Yes, that's the same theory that runs with the stakeholders of the company. The company CANNOT afford to lose it. We all know a crisis happens, be it big or small you can foresee and try to avoid all of it.  I guess that is what Shangri-La is doing, trying their best, just to sustain. Like every big organization. I guess that's all for now. Talk soon!

Cheers,

Alexandrina Yong

 



When Crisis Strikes!

What a week I had last week at my internship! Working at Ezeatm has been an experience so far, involving a range of tasks aimed at improving our reputation with our customers. In the past year the company has seen a huge decline in reputation due to a change of management and poor management prior to last year. The company have slowly been rebuilding their services and how they deliver them, however it seems when crisis strikes, the last year's hard work has been erased!

Last Thursday, the 'switch' network that connects all of Ezeatm's ATMs to the various financial institutions it interacts with broke down and completely shut down all of the company's ATMs around Australia. Not only was the company affected, however competitors were affected as well. In addition to this some Eftpos providers went down, causing an influx of customer phone calls and complaints.

As part of the marketing team, it was damage control time. I was firstly called into a meeting with the Managing Director and the Operations Manager to be briefed on the actual cause of the problem and the best actions to take in terms of communicating with our customers and various stakeholders.

After this I was asked to draft an email blast to all customers on our database to inform them of the downtime and the steps Ezeatm were taking to rectify the situation. In the meantime, I was assisting the administration staff with receiving customer calls and explaining the current situation.

What I had running through my throughout the day was to ensure that the company is seeming to be transparent in the way they are approaching this crisis. Be honest with the customers, explain that it is a problem and the company is doing everything they possibly can to turn the situation around. As soon as I sent the email blast was sent out, the customer calls eased. I truly believe that by keeping people informed it improves the reputation of the company and allows crises to be minimised.

At the end of the day, as soon as the problem had been repaired, I drafted a second email blast which included that the system was up and running again, steps each customer had to follow to reboot their ATM and an apology for any inconvenience caused.

The majority of people enquiring about this issue were calm when they phoned and no one was angry at the situation. I believe this is because everyone was kept informed about the situation and as any new information cam to hand it was sent out immediately.

Overall I was proud of the way I handled to crisis under the guidance of my Managing Director and felt that the whole day was a strong example of team work and effective communication.

For more information on Ezeatm's network provider First Data, please see the link below.

https://www.firstdata.com/en_au/home.html


Rebecca

All good things must come to an end

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. It’s been a fantastic two or so months of interning at The Freeform Foundry and now I face a bittersweet moment as I reflect on the intense coming of weeks that dawn, with reports to write, essays to research and of course more readings!

I do believe that Professional Practice has equipped me with the skills to excel in the public relations world and I cannot wait to put it all to practice when the whirlwind of my last semester of university studies is just a fleeting memory.

The Freeform Foundry was definitely the most unique workplace I have ever come across, and I’m saying that in a positive way! A small boutique consultancy of around 11 employees in the west-end of Fremantle, Freeform for short is full of young talented and creative minds. There is always a very relaxed feeling in the office, with most wearing jeans and t-shirts, which made my transition into the public relations department of the Freeform very comfortable and easy. I gained a huge insight into the lifestyle of a public relations consultant in a boutique firm; multi-tasking is definitely your best friend!

As this is my final blog post, I’d like to take this time to list a few key lessons I came across during my internship.

•      Communication is key!
•      In this digital world, speed and dexterity are everything
•      Social media is all about being transparent
•      High writing standards and skills are a must!

Although all my reflections are mostly positive, I must admit this past semester has probably been the most difficult out of all. Completing Professional Practice with three other units has been intense to say the least, however I wouldn’t of had it any other way. I have met some amazing people during my internship, and am proud to call myself a permanent employee at The Freeform!

I wish everyone all the best in their final days and good luck for the final report. I cannot wait to take on the public relations realm with of you talented Curtin graduates!

To finish my last post I’ve posted a few photos of my time at The Freeform that I hope you enjoy. The first is our blackboard the week before the AFL Grand Final, an office of designers and being located in Fremantle made this week one to remember. The second photo is a few of Freeform’s employees on our new wooden desk, hard at work of course!  

Best of luck,

Rachel Chandler.

To succeed in the world of social media be transparent and engaging!

My usual mornings at my internship include sipping a take-away coffee whilst reading up on industry blogs and researching social media strategies. One interesting analogy I came across was through a column written by Trond Lyngbo involving the peppered moth. These moths, once white with black spots, faced a strange challenge in London during the Industrial Revolution where buildings and trees turned black. The light coloured moths could no longer hide against this backdrop, however some survived by turning black themselves.

The lesson learnt from this moth was clear – to survive you must adapt and change with your environment…otherwise you’re dead! This parallel relates to how social media has shifted and how it is imperative to adapt to these changes within the world of social media, if not, you have less of a chance in succeeding. This article greatly interested me as one of my main priorities and tasks within my internship is social media management. 

Social media is changing every day, from new hashtags to new apps, there is never a dull moment! I have already become knowledgeable on a range of mediums of social media networks that I had previously never heard of. Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Pinterest, Weblogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and the list goes on...

I am responsible for uploading daily posts and monitoring comments for an array of our clients, which can be quite a tedious job as controlling messages on the digital world is becoming seemingly more difficult. As fourth year public relations students we are all familiar on the importance of transparency for an organisation. Essentially, social media management is all about maintaining this transparency, customer engagement and openness.

It was an exciting opportunity to finally put these years of university theory to practice. My first encounter was responding to a customer complaint on one client's Facebook page – to say the least, this customer was not afraid to speak their mind.  It was my duty to resolve this conflict by responding to the post with a resolution and reporting back to our client. As I’ve learnt through my PR studies, it is essential to deal with these issues online by being wary of censorship, as the way you are seen in the public eye with issues online can either enhance or break your reputation.

This week I was also exposed to the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and in today’s digital realm it is more important than ever and still evolving! Many of the campaigns that I’ve been working on involve SEO, by using social media as a means of multiplying the impact, essentially through creating a viral word-of-mouth newsflash. 

A new task I was given this week was to develop a campaign for The Tradewinds Hotel and more specifically their Christmas functions. The campaign will revolve around generating awareness of this venue as an ideal solution for work colleagues, social groups or family/friends to socialise during the festive season. 

That’s all from me for this week - thank you for reading!

Rachel.