29 November Role of Public Relations (...ballyhoo...)

[Paul Terlemezian]

Just as the PR department may succumb to blindly supporting the company instead of explaining the tradeoffs and decisions - the training department - whether training customer or its employees must avoid the same problem.

 

Competitors to vendor provided training often position themselves as unbiased or "on the side of the customer" - they train they "way" it really is vs. the way the marketing department says it is.

 

Training can fulfill 2 roles:

 

1. Let the marketing and product development people know about the issues that customers and employees face with effective utilization of the products.

 

2. Help customers and employees be effective by understanding the realities of the underlying products.

 

As the gap between marketing promise and reality shrinks the PR problem also shrinks.