“If you’ve ever wondered how not to do PR, I’ve got a great example, straight out of my in-basket.” – John Sumser

In this case, someone at either the client or the PR firm made up some ridiculous numbers and then tried to pass them off as a story. It’s pretty important to understand that transparency and accuracy are table stakes in a conversation with an analyst. Worse still, this appears to a story of a customer reference gone terribly wrong.

It only took three questions to get to the fact that the data was distorted. It’s a reputation ding for Career marketplace dot com which makes strong claims about transparency. As you can see, the story was marginal from the beginning.

I filter through a lot of stuff like this as I try to see and understand the actual trends driving the industry. It took a couple of hours to see the wisdom in not splashing this all over the companies and people involved. As I decided to be gentle on this one, I began to realize how important a story it was.

What matters here isn’t the (completely inexcusable) inattention to marketing claims and details. What matters is that this could be happening at your company and you’d never know. Badly executed marketing and PR can destroy your credibility before you even know it’s happening.

Maybe it’s time to pay a little more attention to what people are saying on your behalf.

Hi John,

Many companies talk about having a customer-focused company culture, but few are able to actually build a model that works. Wondering if you’d be interested in exploring how one rapidly growing startup used cloud-based customer support software, Customer Support Software dot net, to transform how it handles customer support and create a CS model for other businesses to follow.

Career marketplace dot com helps job seekers find the job they love through a free, candidate-centric platform in which companies apply to candidates, not the other way around. The company’s culture is also candidate-centric, with every employee held accountable for customer support and therefore considered a member of the customer service department – from sales to engineering to IT to HR. Any issue, whether internal or external, is handled by the person who is best suited to address it.

Career marketplace dot com’s company-wide support culture has paid off – its marketplace has more than 500k candidates and $15B in offers made by companies nationwide.

Thought this would be of particular interest to you considering your personal experience working within the intersection of technology and HR. I’d love to share more details about how Career marketplace dot com used Customer Support Software dot net to align the entire company in service of its customers, as well as place you in touch with executives at Career marketplace dot com and Customer Support Software dot net.

Interested?

Thanks,
Amy

HiAmy,

I’m interested, But, I’d like some clarification on the $15B number.