Re: Bad Publicity

From: "Steve Pritchard" <steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk>

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Roy wrote in message <7nil3d$9g4$1@news1.cableinet.co.uk>...
>Hi all,
>
>I was wondering if anyone has had to deal with bad publicity made about
>their games and how they deal with it. I'm also interested to know
whether
>peoples 'right-to-reply' is really any consolation for being given the
bad
>publicity to start off with.

Roy, you have before you an expert at dealing with bad publicity<g>

You name it, we have had it. from bogus reports in Flagship Rumours
through letters to magazines telling people who much we suck, right up to
personal attacks and slanderous comments across Usenet.

Anyone who tells you that any publicity is good publicity is talking out
of their arse, by the way.

How to deal with it depends upon what damage has been done. A "Right to
Reply" can often backfire, as it can come across as though the company is
making excuses for the allegations levelled against them, be they true or
false, and unless it is handled well, it can actually make the damage that
much worse. One way we once dealt with such stuff in Flagship was to talk
Nicky into allowing me a single page article on a related issue, rather
than a right to reply. It fitted into the back of an issue as the
"tailpiece" and concerned the fact that sometimes the Customer is not
always right after all. After it was printed it defused a fair bit of the
negativity that the comments from an "imaginary" disgruntled customer had
done to us, and one or two people signed up for our games and said that
they had read the piece and enjoyed it.

When we got a "Stay Away From Spellbinder Games" post on this very forum,
from a player who didn't like the way his complaints about a game had been
handled (a game, which I must stress, he had not played so much as a
single turn of before he began to suggest rule changes), the problem was
best dealt with through private email. The poster was very vocal and did
his best to make everyone listen to his complaints but once I spoke to him
privately he calmed down and the situation was dealt with amicably in the
end.

There's a great statistic that someone probably pulled out of their arse;
for every satisfied customer that tells one friend about your games, a
dissatisfied customer will tell five. It sounds rubbish but I'd say it is
probably true.

References

Bad Publicity
"Roy" <plod@NOSPAMYASPAMMAproweb.co.uk>
Mon, 26 Jul 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Bad Publicity
"Roy" <plod@NOSPAMYASPAMMAproweb.co.uk>
Mon, 26 Jul 1999 00:00:00 +0000