I love study and learning, but I have a busy, work focused life and this wasn’t going to help me find time for a social life; but a few years of part time study was worth it. I thought.

Having almost finished my first subject, it is hard to describe how very disappointed I am.

Totally online. Sounds great. University of Melbourne. Great reputation, even better.

All sorts of resources – a discussion board where lecturers post messages for students, a webinar every second week to discuss assessments, uploaded within 24 hours in case you can’t join.

WooHoo

So first assessment written and uploaded by Turnitin, a universal plagiarism detector in week four.

Feedback due week 6. Looking forward to that with apprehension. Our final and biggest assessment is a follow on from our first. If we got it wrong the first time we need to know so that we can get it right the final time.

Second assessment due. Still no word on the first. But it is the University of Melbourne. We will hear soon.

Third assessment due. A Pecha Kucha – something that takes many, many hours to master. Finally, it is the best I can do. Follow the upload instructions. Fail, Again, Fail. Again, Fail. Call a friend and together we work out that Turnitin does not allow for video upload.

An aside:

Because I knew how important it was to give this study the time it deserved, whilst also giving my clients the time they deserved. I did quite a lot of preparation. I increased the hours of a staff member, I outsourced a few smaller jobs, I re-organised my business time and university time. I was taking it seriously and respectfully.

But, when I was doing all that, I did not take into account having to spend hours trying to upload an assessment before travelling interstate for work. Or how long it would take for the university to address the problem.

So the final and biggest assessment is due soon. But, hang on, it is now weeks late and I still haven’t received feedback on the first one. I still don’t know if I was on the right track. And I cannot make the final webinar on the final assessment because I am away for work.

Now, back in Victoria. Get up at 5am on Saturday morning to review the webinar and get stuck into the final assessment over the weekend.

The webinar was on Wednesday. We are asked to allow 24 hours to upload. It is now Saturday and not available. I look in all the spots where I would expect to see a message if there was a problem. Nothing.

I begin the assessment without the benefit of the webinar and go back time and again on the weekend. Nothing. Ah well, it is the weekend. Hope for Monday morning. Nothing.

Emailed the two lecturers. One response – away for several more weeks, the other response -away from the office, will be looking at emails, if urgent, contact one of these two people. (neither from the particular school that I am enrolled in). But tried both. One automated email back – no such person. No response from the other person.

I didn’t really expect her to respond. I knew that it was not her problem and I knew by now that customer service is not a priority and when customer service is poor, people say “not my problem” and delete.

I waited though, because I could not quite believe that the University of Melbourne could not upload a video and not let students know that there was a problem. That is customer service 101. What are we paying for?

Tuesday came and went. No announcements, no webinar, now only a few days until the final assessment is due. Stop worrying about that because if I am on the wrong track, it is almost too late to change it. What is worrying me now, is how can there be no response to emails, no marked assessments, no webinar, no announcements.

Come Wednesday (one week after webinar), I emailed online student support.

Thursday nothing. No email, no announcements, no webinar, fewer days until the final assessment.

At 2pm I rang them.

Aside#2

It is important to note that I don’t like to rock the boat, it is not in my nature. I don’t want to be seen as a grumpy old lady, I’m not usually. I don’t want to negatively influence my marks!! I don’t want to be in this position where I am going on line every hour to see if either the video is there or a message explaining what is wrong

Anyway, back to the phone call.

Maybe, somehow it is my fault? I am asked?

What have you done about it? Who have you notified? When? Then, We will notify you when it is up. Is there anything else that we can do?

Yes, post an announcement so that other students are aware that you know about the problem and you are working on it, respond to your emails, apologise.

Yes. An announcement is a good idea. We will do that. (three hours later it has not been done).

But I do have a response to my email:

Hi Noelene, 

Thanks for your email and your phone call earlier today. We do apologise for the inconvenience you have experienced due to the recording of the webinar not being uploaded. 

This issue was flagged within our team the day after the webinar was recorded and was escalated to the online webinar support team. This issue is still being investigated and as such, we are still waiting for the staff at Blackboard to locate the recorded webinar from that night. 

I apologise for the frustration this has caused you. You will be informed as soon as the recording has been located and uploaded. As this has impacted your ability to complete your assessments, you are more than welcome to apply for an extention for your upcoming assessments. This can be done by contacting the Subject Coordinator..

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns. 

They have lost the recording.

They have not bothered in more than a week to let students who missed the webinar know that the recording is lost.

They can’t spell extension! (now I am just being bitchy I know).

They do not respond to students’ emails – ironically the only email that I did get was my invoice $2,876

I assume that this is a result of cuts to universities. Lecturers who do not have the capability to use the internet having to teach online. Webinar teams losing webinars.

I will probably withdraw. I am not in a position to pay for such terribly poor service. I am very sad about it.

The post Can customer service get much worse… appeared first on Agility Communications.

What is your guide for how and when to communicate about issues or crises?

If you have a plan, when was it last reviewed?

Is it up to date or wildly out of date?

I started to think about the importance of Crisis Communication Plans when reading an article last week. The article, titled Home Didn’t Report Harm, Despite Advice begins with this chilling opening paragraph:

KNOWN bashings at a scandal-hit aged-care home needed to be reported to police and the federal agency, according to strongly worded legal advice provided confidentially to Baptist group executives in December.

The article continues…

But no reports were made at the time and no effective plans were immediately put in place, leading to a further bashing in January at the Kepnock Grove home in Bundaberg, about 400km north of Brisbane.

 The failure of local managers at the Baptist Community Services-owned aged-care home to report multiple assaults was identified in a limited internal probe by senior management in December. The findings of this probe — which identified other problems, including untreated injuries, suspicious deaths, falsified documents, the rationing of food and general neglect — prompted the group to instruct lawyers.

 The group decided it would not meet its legislative mandatory reporting requirement to alert police and the Department of Social¬ Services, according to insiders¬, who accuse executives of mounting a deliberate cover-up.

The article goes on and you can read it here, but rather than focus on yet another disaster for good PR and more importantly, good customer service that includes a safe place to live; I decided to concentrate on looking at what you can do to reduce risk of a reputation crisis (and hopefully reduce the risk to the lives and wellbeing of our elderly.)

What is a crisis?

In this context when talking about crisis we mean:

A significant disruption to business that stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and government impact on its business.   Institute of Crisis Management (US)

A crisis can have a devastating impact on your business and everyone close to your business – your clients, their carers, family and friends, staff, Board, community.

Would you be prepared to deal with the aftermath? Talk to government departments, deal with the media?

In my opinion, all organisations need some sort of Crisis Communication Plan and its tenets should be to:

Act swiftly, proactively, ethically and honestly. 

Contain an apology where necessary.

 Your Crisis Communication Plan details how you will respond to crises.  What to include?

You would expect the following in most Crisis Communication Plans:

• Who are the Key spokespeople? (for example, CEO, Chair, Executive)
• What media training do these spokespeople need?
• Who are the key stakeholders? Of those, who needs to be contacted directly? Of those who are the most urgent?
• Who do you know in the media who understands your business? You will need media releases, briefing papers, backgrounders- When and how will these be developed? How can you be proactive instead of reactive with the media?
• Digital media – Announcements on Website(s); Who will monitor and respond to social media? What are the key messages?
• Communication protocol – who will deal with internal inquiries? Who will deal with external inquiries? How will callers/emailers be dealt with?
• Contact details – who will you need to contact in a hurry? Do you have mobile numbers, email addresses etc.?

Material at hand

Have you prepared materials prior to crisis? What are they? Do they include:

• Annual Reports
• Fact Sheets, (for example, number of employees, type and size of organisation, affiliated organisations, quality assurance measures in place; strategies in place to decrease risks associated with crisis, complaints procedures)
• Organisation Chart
• Mobile phone numbers
• Policies

Key Messages – they will vary depending on what has happened, but generally in the first instance:

Assume responsibility but not liability

Focus on recovery

Do Not blame

After the Crisis Now is time to:

• Review and Evaluatie
• Record and store knowledge
• Update plan as required
• Monitor recovery and maintain relationships
• Continue ongoing communication important to maintain control and regain stakeholder trust
• Recognise effort of all affected and those who assisted

And perhaps ask for help from influential people who could speak on your behalf.

This morning, just before loading this blog, I came across this link which will also be useful.

Microphones

The post A Crisis Communication Plan – An opportunity to save your business from Free Fall appeared first on Agility Communications.

Have you got a good complaints process?

I was reading an article in Australian Ageing Agenda about Rae Lamb, Aged Care Commissioner and it struck me that what I think of as common sense complaint handling, (that is, although there may be very difficult decisions to be made, you do so ensuring that they are timely, effective, part of a process and fair). We know that some organisations do not do this. Perhaps as part of a cover-up, or poor processes, or perhaps because they just don’t know how to deal with them.

That is why we need good complaints processes. They protect the individuals, (particularly in the case of aged care services where many are vulnerable and some without advocates in family or friends). They also protect the organisation. No organisation wants to close its doors because of a scandal that they could have addressed long before closing down is the only solution.

Rae Lamb, a former journalist and deputy health and disability commissioner in New Zealand talks about “best practice complaints handling and why providers should say sorry more often”.

Music to my ears. One common way to ruin or at least badly tarnish your reputation is to avoid a very easy sorry or to drag on a complaint process in a way that makes the complainant more upset. Worse still no complaint process at all. Anything could happen.

The article includes Rae reflecting on her decade of experience in complaints management in New Zealand.

Lamb says she is convinced it is best to resolve a complaint early, and to do so directly between the parties involved.

“By the time a complaint in aged care, health or disability comes to a complaints scheme, and certainly by the time it gets to an office of review… It’s becoming too late to get a satisfactory outcome for the people involved.”

Lamb says this puts the onus on providers to respond well to complaints and facilitate early and direct resolution as much as possible.

“Service providers also need to realise that doing a good job of complaints is the quid pro quo of a resolution-based complaints scheme. You have a system now where the focus, when something goes wrong, is on fixing deficiencies and addressing what has gone wrong. It is very seldom there will be a punitive outcome for the service provider.”

However, for the public to have faith in that kind of system, they need to see their complaints will make a difference, that their concerns will be resolved appropriately, where necessary, and that there is improvement to care, Lamb says.

She goes on to talk about the importance of an apology

Offering an apology where deficiencies have been established is an important part of good practice, and can provide the acknowledgment and individual resolution a complainant may be looking for, Lamb says.

An apology can be just as important as receiving an explanation of what happened and an assurance that the necessary steps have been taken to correct the matter and improve care, she says.

Open discussion about complaints is also critical to promoting a culture that encourages organisations to learn from mistakes. “Complaints are so rare that they need to be valued,” she says.

As a Public Relations Consultant, I am very aware of: both the need to mitigate/reduce number of complaints through risk management procedures such as policies, procedures, complaint management etc.

And the damage any poor response to a complaint can cause. Especially when the public perceive that the complaint could and should have been dealt with quickly; when it is serious, when vulnerable people are concerned; and where there are legal obligations for mandatory reporting.

Aged Care services and facilities are working with vulnerable people, and often with their worried and anxious friends and family members. A robust, proactive and transparent complaints service, a willingness to apologise and address problems; an ability to report on how systemic changes have been made to systemic issues all go a long way to greater confidence  for the consumer.

How do people choose which service to use? By talking to each other about it.

I tried to find a reliable statistic of the importance of word of mouth marketing  – having consumers say good things about you to other consumers – they vary, but all agree that word of mouth is important and needs to be taken into consideration.

No matter what your business, organisation or service provides, complaints will arise and if you want to keep your good reputation intact you need to have a transparent,  clear, consistent and fair process to deal with them.

If you need help with any aspect of public relations please feel free to contact us, we’d be more than happy to help.

The post Why dealing with complaints promptly and unconditional apologies are good for business. appeared first on Agility Communications.