I’ve stumbled into this post by Sivaraman Swaminathan at Customer World, and I’ve immediately tried to apply the eight rules he has summarized from Exceeding Customer Expectations to PR agencies. I’ve worked in several “global” companies (i.e. US based PR agencies with offices abroad, who have been trying for over 50 years to understand Europe and other continents without getting a single clue about it) and I know that they fail in several areas. These are the eight rules, with my comments in italic:

1. A passion for taking care of customers. Can you please explain me how can you pretend to take care of customers when your first concern is to charge them by the minute even when you are preparing their bill?
2. A willingness to be flexible. Same as point 1. How the hell the hourly rate and the time sheet can be considered a demonstration of flexibility?
3. A work ethic based on dedication to the company and its mission. Same as point 1 and 2. How ethical and dedicated to the company and its mission you are when you try to justify an inflated invoice “making up” the time sheet?
4. An eagerness to learn a new business and work their way up. How do you call this in agency jargon? Overhead? Pure bullshit. Not only you are supposed to learn at the client’s expenses, but you are usually “warmly invited” not to lose time with these useless details…
5. Self-motivation and goal-orientation. Bullshit again. Global PR agencies are hourly rate and time sheet oriented, and because of this accounts are usually demotivated for a number of reasons, starting from the fact that most agency executives don’t have even a basic knowledge of their profession (this, unfortunately, applies to 98% of Italian PR agencies).
6. Persuasive sales skills. This might be true, but not in my case.
7. Excellent communication skills. Aren’t we supposed to be nice and friendly? I’ve heard more than a chap affirming that a PR guy must be cool and talkative. Are these the communication skills that we are supposed to provide to our clients?
8. Leadership ability. I’ll end with an anedocte: the CEO of one of the “global” PR agencies I’ve worked for has explained to the US management that we Europeans would eventually drop our native language and adopt English as our first language, because “this makes sense”. What a “global” leader… (clue: he’s the closest to Anheuser Busch headquarters).