Substance, not Spin

You can put the best face on an organisation with PR, but if there are fundamental problems with the product or service, it ain't gonna help much to have a good reputation if the fundamentals continually let the organisation down.
But a good reputation also sets up service expectations and this is an area where small businesses have an edge if they can outgun the big boys with outstanding product and/or service delivery.
A good example of this has just happened to me today. I had my expectations badly shattered by Sainsburys. They have gone from high quality provider to something much worse in our household having caused three lost days off work by botching arrangements to deliver a fridge freezer to my elderly mother-in-law. She's in hospital just now, so we have a round trip of 1.5 hours and a 4 hour daytime wait in her flat each time they make a delivery promise. That's effectively, a day off work, and thanks to both my husband and I running our own businessess, there's no kind employer picking up the bill.
In my book, three strikes and you're out. Sainsbury's Kitchen Appliances failed to contact me as promised between 5-6pm last night to give me the time slot for today's guaranteed delivery (having botched it up twice before, they swore blind it would be sorted this time).
I rang to see when they were coming first thing this morning. No explanation. Nothing. They just stated that it definitely would not be delivered today and "all they could do was re-schedule the delivery". Thanks, but no thanks.
I cancelled the order and asked for an address to direct a letter of complaint and request compensation for 3 lost work days. And this is where it gets interesting. Despite the Sainsbury's logo being plastered all over the website, I was told that Sainsbury's Kitchen Appliances are actually run by a company called DRL Ltd in Bolton. They gave me their address to write to as Sainsbury's Kitchen Appliances c/o DRS, plus the email address as enquiries@sainsburyskitchenappliances.co.uk.
Apparently the fact that you are dealing with DRL Ltd is stated in the T&C which, they smugly informed me, "we expect customers to read." Well, yes, I did skim the T&C, but I trusted the Sainsburys name so it didn't occur to me that I was looking out for a fundamental change in the company I was dealing with. I actually read the DRL reference as DHL, and assumed Sainsbury's were devolving delivery to that well-known carrier. The good reputation of Sainsburys, and the fact that they deal with grocery deliveries so efficiently in 2-hour time slots, was a major factor in choosing to buy from them. I actually feel conned as it took a lot of unfruitful contact with the delivery telephone line to finally discover who we were actually dealing with. I've never heard of DRL.
Up until now, we had been surprised that we were getting mucked about by Sainsburys - and mucked about is a mild description. The last time we arranged delivery, my mild-mannered and gentle hubby came back incandescent with rage after a 5-hour wait. He had arrived at the appointed hour to be told by the resident manager at my mum in law's flats that the delivery guy had been and gone some 15 mins earlier than arranged. It didn't help to be told the guy was instructed to wait 15 mins every time he couldn't gain entry.....
The supplier's co-ordinator said she would ring the driver to turn him back, forcing hubby to hang on, but she didn't get back to him. Eventually he rang them when the end of the agreed time slot had passed to be told they that they couldn't reach the driver.... .
This was the second time they'd messed him around, having earlier agreed a time band for delivery which they tried to change on the delivery day itself. As hubby had shunted his work commitments to spend the morning fruitlessly kicking his heels, he was committed to turning up for work, which happened to involve catching a ferry to interview someone for the BBC. There's no way he could further alter that schedule.
There's no amount of PR that can whitewash over basic service delivery (or lack of) problems like this. It needs a fundamental overhaul if the communications, management and incentive/disciplinary systems are failing to control drivers who ignore contracted arrangements and delivery promises. Then that overhaul needs to be communicated clearly to ensure that people who have suffered realise that something effective is being done, so they stop sounding off about it, as I am doing just now.
Small businesses have a much shorter line of communications, and even if they do outsource something, they can put senior people on to fixing it or offering an alternative, instead of a call centre operative repeating that 'all they can do is re-schedule." If all small businesses conducted their businesses like this, no larger companies would have evolved from them! And I believe that DRL are missing a major trick by not pulling out all the stops to grow a good business on the back of one of the strongest brand names in the UK retail sector.
Research in the pre-internet days showed that a badly disgruntled customer's tale reached 200 people by the time friends of friends passed on the story. More if the complainants contacted a consumer watchdog body or the media. Now, the story can follow a company all round the world thanks to online tools like these. And mud sticks.
The trick is to understand that the best PR is to keep an eye out for matters of real substance that are affecting your business and always veer towards substance rather than spin.
Let's hope Sainsbury's take real action to tackle any problems being perpetuated in their name