Two years ago my business began working with the brilliant Interdependence PR, a public relations firm which has greatly helped our company to grow. I would genuinely recommend a PR firm for many companies out there and when you make the right choice, you can expect to see your business and your profitability grow. Unfortunately however not every PR company is fit for every business and before we began working with Interdependence, we’d had some pretty poor experiences with many PR companies. There are certain things which you should expect from a PR firm and if you don’t seethes qualities as part of the service then it may be time to look elsewhere. Here are the basic things which I believe that you should demand from the PR company which you are working with or which you plan to work with.

Customer Service

There are many companies out there who seemingly believe that you need them more than they need you, and as such their customer service can be atrocious. For me this is a real dealbreaker and if I am paying for a service then I expect to receive exactly that. I expect to be treated like a respected customer and I expect this from the beginning of my dealings with a PR firm, until the day comes that we stop working together. If a company cannot even offer you customer service, it does beg the question which other areas of their business are they shirking on.

Market Understanding

My company operates within the technology field and when I hired our very first PR firm I made the mistake of thinking that this wouldn’t be very important, how wrong I was. Whilst PR firms do offer a wide range of services for a number of sectors and industries, not all of them are able to understand markets outside of their speciality. This was the case with our first PR company, they were market leaders in what they did, but they had no idea about the tech market and this showed through very quickly indeed. When you work with a PR company it is absolutely vital that they understand your market and how to speak to people within it.

Desire

Because of the benefits which are available to you when you hire a PR firm the very least that you should come to expect is that they are as passionate about delivering results as you are. You should expect that your PR firm has a real desire to deliver and over-deliver on the results which have been agreed and you should really get a sense from them that they are willing to do all that it takes to achieve the goals which have been set out. If you don’t feel this optimism and raw passion from the team that you are working with then it may be time to try another which will be motivated to achieve what you are looking for.

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