If press offices were ever to compete in the Olympics then the London Organizing Committee for the 2012 Games might have a good chance of coming in last but at least it seems to have achieved a rather dubious first.
Even in this world of Bangalore call centers and automated customer service operations, a media operation that puts callers to the director of communications through to call center-style muzak is a bit of a marathon to endure, especially when my mission was to try to redress the balance over that rather odd logo.
Actually, I’m sure a lot of call centers are better than what I experienced while waiting for my call to be answered. I wish I could tell you which Radio Two songs were playing but frankly I got a bit too fed up to notice, eventually hanging up (after a lot more than five rings).
Later I summoned up the energy to brave the press-office-cum-call-center again. To my surprise I reached a real person.
Where was the communicator I had been patiently waiting for, I queried. Ah, not in today, came the reply. Priceless? Or perhaps actually quite damaging? Still there is five years to sort it out. At least they could choose better music.
Actually, the more worrying thing is that LOCOG’s press office falls into a rather too easy to predict category.
It’s far from the only press office where calls are answered breathlessly by people who don’t seem qualified to supply answers but are adept at extracting information about precisely what is wanted from unsuspecting hacks.
Sadly, I’m beginning to identify a few common traits. After sprinting to get through the call as quickly as possible, a great silence can follow. Safe in the knowledge of what you want, they’re resolutely not going to give it up. Often, they don’t even overcome the hurdle of deigning to return a call.
The only hope is to get put through to someone senior enough to be allowed to go through the hoops themselves. All too often, however, to get there you have to either have Olympian resilience or seriously bad musical tastes.
Who else could compete in this event? Step out of the aisles J Sainsbury and mind that gap London Underground. There was a day when the London Stock Exchange would also have been a contender but thankfully it has moved on.
The only consolation is that this is yet another event where Britain would lose to the Americans who, judging from my three years in New York, seem to have made this sort of thing into standard practice. Let’s fly the flag on this one please. No journalist should expect to be prioritized. But short of offshoring the press office to India (don’t say you haven’t thought about it), this isn’t the smartest way to try to communicate.
By Andrew Cave
Contributor
CorpComms magazine
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