Professional Communication: project an image, don't be creepy

How to create an image? How to communicate professionalism? Are there standards which can help us enhance the communication strategy?

Study Case

The answers to those questions are correlated and almost impossible to find separately. However, there are quite a lot of companies out there trying to cut down the communication costs while making efforts to score high on image rankings. I have in mind a recent experience from a big international corporation operating in the office space renting business. The experience included both online company research and visiting the local office. The research phase showed non-existing CSR policy, non-existing employee benefits, accusations of careless behavior in connection to the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center a few years back, and company-produced marketing videos. The visit at the local office revealed a high rate of employee turnover, very unusual hiring policy (hiring only for lowest hierarchy positions with no requirements for education and experience, on minimal wage), and deceiving job descriptions.

When walking through the door you are greeted way too eagerly by the staff which makes you almost uncomfortable. What they pride themselves for is great flexibility in services and high level of professional customer service. The only customer feedback is available through the corporate marketing videos though.

Communicational no go

What was observed at that company is an absolute communicational no go. The non existing CSR policy and the lack of personnel benefits in a country as Denmark where CSR is becoming more than a standard and employees are treated with special care as assets is a sign of unprofessional management. The smile of the receptionist is not enough to make up for corporate mismanagement or irresponsible behavior. It also needs to be in line with services, surroundings, corporate culture and needs to be rooted in a thorough policy. Otherwise it comes across as insincere and creepy. Smiling while doing your job needs to be just as professionally distanced as your work style. Are you flirting with the customer or servicing them? Make it clear.

Image: communication standards and guidelines

Image management, even though there is such a discipline, sounds very wrong as image management is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. Hiring a professional to work on your image does not make a lot of sense if you have not clarified what the company stays for and how it wants to be regarded by your stakeholders. Stakeholders are all individuals and groups that are or can be affected by the operating of your business and/or have an interest in your business.

You need therefore to start from identifying your business’ core characteristics and analyzing the strategic stars for your brand. After clarifying what is desired and what is possible you need to get very practical and analyze in what ways your vision and mission can be embedded in your culture and business operations.

While you make considerations about communication practices, image building and communicating your values outside of and inside the company you need to get acquainted with the professional communication standards which will be your guarantee that your communication strategy is not going to backfire by earning you critics or even lawsuits in connection to unethical behavior.

 

After you manage to create a thorough and working communication strategy completely aligned with your business operations you might want to go one step further and consider CSR. There are countless studies showing that a CSR policy is considered a plus and sometimes a definitive criterion for choosing your company as a partner, provider or employer. For the policy to work though, you once again need to be consequent. Just as you need to make sure that you have implemented a communication policy that fits your business profile you also need to do the same when engaging in CSR. If you are not careful about this you might end up being accused of using CSR as a promotional tool instead of as a sincere expression of your concern for your stakeholders and the environment. You might for example decide to fund poor children in Africa but you have to explain why it is the poor children in Africa getting your support and not the local caner organization, for example.

After completing your communication strategy you need to make sure that it covers as a minimum mission, vision, development strategy, internal communication and employee management, HR policy and benefits, corporate culture, online and traditional marketing activities, branding, crisis communication, media relations, external stakeholder management, customer relations specifically, community care and involvement, and CSR.

When you are ready you will find yourself under a stack of thick guidebooks addressing the separate topics. You will have to always make sure that they are aligned with strategy and updated regularly. Among those guidebooks you will find the one describing how you need to treat customers in order to communicate the desired corporate image.

Do you now understand why smiling a lot is not professional but creepy?

 

DIDI