I found an interesting site this morning: http://consumerist.com.

It is a giant and ever-growing manual showing how consumers can fight back against price gouging, bad service, bum deals and corruption in general. In just a few minutes I went from reading how to get out of a cell phone contract without paying a penalty to an analysis of how giant debt rating house Moody’s helped create the current sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S.

This site is more evidence that the web is giving consumers more power than ever before. The consumerist site is only one very obvious example. Corporations and governments today need to be more aware than ever of just how quickly word can spread on the web for good and for bad.

It’s a trend that forcing organizations to be more forthright and honest than ever before. Speaking as a guy who counsels his clients on how to build strong, credible brands … that’s a good thing.

Adam Dooley 

I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to my barbecue: I am a diehard advocate for charcoal. It takes a bit longer to get the coals going than it does to spark a propane burner, but I argue that only helps by giving the meat more time to marinate and me more time to relax in my backyard.

When the weather finally spurred me to break out my Weber barbecue a few weeks ago, I saw that I needed some replacement parts. After 10 years, I needed a new charcoal grate as my old one was little more than twisted, rusty wire that can hardly support briquettes. I also thought it was time to get a few other additions like a new grill and a kettle-side work surface.

I was very pleased to see that Weber has a very good U.S. website and the prices for the parts I wanted were reasonable. Within a few minutes I was ready to proceed to their online checkout, but wait… I was stopped before I could even get out my credit card. Weber didn’t want my business, because I am Canadian.

Is there a Canadian website, I asked the company via email? No, the U.S. parent answered. I was referred to a toll-free Canadian number instead.

Though disappointed that the company was holding up hoops for me to jump through, I called the number. I aborted my first attempt after five minutes on hold. Later, when I had more time, I waited more than 15 minutes before my call was finally answered.

It was then that I discovered not only does the Canadian Weber barbecue operation make it difficult to access replacement parts, they gouge their Canadian customers too with prices on grates and grills more than double that of their U.S. parent. I asked both U.S. and Canadian companies how they justified these extreme mark-ups, but got no answer to my questions beyond feeble apologies for my inconvenience.

I found it a very sad example of yet another company that just doesn’t understand how to be a consumer-facing operation in 2008. How can you not have a website for your Canadian customers? Why do you make it so difficult and inconvenient to get through to your customer service line? And why, when customers like me can easily do online price checks, do you have the nerve to gouge us?

Once I tallied up the inflated costs for my Canadian Weber parts, I easily saw I was spending nearly as much as a new barbecue would cost. It doesn’t make sense to order the parts. I’ll check out other options and if I can’t find the parts, I’ll go shopping for a new barbecue instead.

I’m quite sure Weber will not be on my shopping list. So while the company’s management seems to think it is okay to live in 1980 when it comes to customer service, they’re losing sales and lifelong customers like me. Too bad, because they make a good product. I just can’t see myself forking over more money to a company that makes it deliberately difficult for me to be a customer.

What Weber needs to realize – like too many companies – is that the Internet has completed changed the way people shop. Even if I am inclined to go buy a barbecue (or barbecue parts) at the Home Depot or Rona or Costco, I’m going to do my research online first. In a few minutes, I can do some very easy comparison shopping. Corporations need to build their web strategies to recognize that fact. Ironically, the U.S. parent company has an excellent website… I just wish it wasn’t so xenophobic.

Happy grillin’

Adam Dooley.

“So you do public relations?  That’s writing press releases and getting publicity, right?”

I had just met my interogator at a luncheon. We had squeezed hands across the stale breadrolls and were attempting to make small talk before the presentation started. She was a youngish human resources professional and, like many HR people, was trying to show her mastery of knowledge of just about every corporate position.

“Well, that’s part of it,” I said. “But writing news releases and getting publicity is really just media relations.”

“What’s public relations then?” she asked.

Public relations uses media relations, but it’s just one of the tools at our disposal, I explained. PR is about using various means of persuasion to influence opinion, to build strategic relationships and to foster mutual understanding between an organization and its various publics. A news release is an important tool, but there are many more.

For instance, I explained, one of the oldest PR tactics in the book is the speech. The speaker at our luncheon would, no doubt, use his opportunity to demonstrate his expertise, win adherents to his point of view and (in general) spread the gospel according to him and his company. The brochures that his company left on the table are another tactic at play, as are the various efforts to refine his presentation with PowerPoint and a corporate display behind the podium.

I frequently need to explain the breadth of public relations and its utility to people I meet. I don’t think it is just a Winnipeg thing; people in larger centres seem to have a misconception about the practice as well.

I was very gratified the other day to get a call from a business leader who I have worked with only at a distance. He said he’d learned a great deal about how powerful public relations can be by working with Dooley Communications. He had called to ask if he could refer me to a business acquaintance who needed to turn around some negative (and untrue) perceptions about his company. He was “in to it up to his eyeballs” as he put it.

Good PR is indeed a strategic business function. Maybe I should write a news release explaining that.

Adam Dooley