Every October, organisations in Kenya and around the world celebrate Customer Service Week, a time when they prioritise customer centricity. However, this celebration is often short-lived, and customers return to a familiar cycle of service frustrations, fragmented processes, and queues. This raises questions about the role of Public Relations (PR) in shaping organisational reputation and how it influences the experience behind the reputation.
PR has long played a central role in shaping how organisations communicate, engage stakeholders, and build reputation. However, the environment in which that reputation is formed has become far more expansive. Customers do not experience an organisation through its communication materials alone; the experience is drawn from platforms, systems, interactions, and the clarity of information provided.
The experience is also shaped by what happens when something goes wrong, and unresolved complaints amplified online can expose a very different customer reality. What begins as an operational problem can quickly become a communication and reputational one. This prompts a broader view of the role of PR in shaping organisational reputation, connecting what an organisation is seeking to achieve with how those decisions, policies, and services are experienced by its stakeholders.
Communications professionals are well placed to identify patterns, expectations, and concerns that shape perception. Customer complaints, call-centre data, social conversations, frontline observations, and service surveys can provide valuable signals about stakeholder expectations and emerging areas of concern. For PR, these insights are not simply inputs for managing communication but can inform the organisation’s understanding of where its promise, delivery, and reputation connect.
To do this effectively, PR must nurture and leverage leadership access, trust, and goodwill, while maintaining a strong understanding of the organisation’s priorities and operating environment. Practitioners should also understand what is changing, listen closely to stakeholders, and have the confidence to bring uncomfortable insights to the table. Equally, leadership must recognise PR’s strategic role and provide the access and trust needed for communications professionals to offer candid counsel.
This calls for closer collaboration across communications, business, and operational teams, using feedback and data to identify patterns and emerging concerns. The objective should extend beyond dashboards to understanding where the organisational promise and customer experience diverge, and collectively addressing the friction that creates the gap. The real test of the Customer Service Week is not how creatively an organisation celebrates but what changes because of that celebration.
Ultimately, reputation is shaped in the space between what an organisation promises and what people experience. In an age where those experiences can be shared instantly, the most credible communication an organisation can make may simply be a service that works. As Linda Onyango, a strategic communications and reputation management expert, notes, organisations must move beyond the balloons and focus on creating a customer-centric experience that matches their promise.
Key points
- Reputation is shaped by the gap between an organisation's promise and the customer's experience.
- PR plays a central role in shaping organisational reputation by connecting what an organisation is seeking to achieve with how those decisions, policies, and services are experienced by its stakeholders.
- Closer collaboration across communications, business, and operational teams is necessary to identify patterns and emerging concerns and address the friction that creates the gap between the organisational promise and customer experience.
