Q.1
Currently, people perceive Pepco negatively, especially after it announced that it would be merging with Exelon. As such, they now claim that the intention of the company is not in the interest of the people living in the District of Columbia. Specifically, the deal that is meant to benefit the company at the expense of the people. Therefore, some stakeholders want the company to revise its deals. The media’s treatment of the company is also informed by people’s opinions regarding the company.
While this is the case, the reporting of the press can be regarded as extreme. This is to say that the news that the media presents to the audience about the company are exaggerated. The media makes the situation look appalling. To a large extent, this is an attempt to make an appeal to the audience. In my opinion, I think that Pepco is not a respected company. This is one top issue that it has to manage. There are, however, other matters that the entity has to administer. Such include dissatisfaction among the customers, political fallout over the reliability of service along with outage restoration. As a combination of action and action, the above issues reflect a soiled corporate reputation, which will take time and effort to clean.
Q. 2
Corporate reputation refers to the collective judgments that observers usually hold regarding an organization. This outcome is generally based on their assessment of social, financial, and environmental impacts attributable to the company over a specified period. Some public has greater negative perceptions about the company than others do. While this is the case, this difference is due to the variance in the nature of interest. For instance, people within the political realm have a greater perception than the other members of the public when it comes to political issues.
Similarly, customers have a greater negative opinion than these political agents with respect to customer-experience issues. Such a reputation crisis affects the company in that the corporation found it particularly hard to maintain sustainability in the reliability its services. It also experienced service restoration issues. Since the only way to solve the problem was communicating with all those who had developed an indifferent attitude toward the company, Pepco had to make corporate communication as a leader.
Q. 3
The key activities that were conducted under the business communication categories include media relations, corporate philanthropy, investor relations, marketing communications, investor relations and employee relations (PRSA, 2013).
Q.4
Q. 5
The customer relations were the most important consideration in achieving success. As identified in the case study, the customers of Pepco were overly dissatisfied. It is apparent that the company did not take the client interests into account. This, indeed, can be thought as the source of every other relational issue that the company was experiencing. Take an instance of the political critics. They did not approve the way the company was interacting with the laws, which are supposed to secure customer happiness (PRSA, 2013). The same can be said about the media. It is evident that the participants were angered by the business deals that the company was pursuing. These business deals were not by the customer best interests. Thus, by addressing the customer issues, it follows that all the other relational issues would be solved.
Q. 6
An example of a recent Pepco event is March of Dimes March for Babies. The target audience is comprised of pregnant mothers. The aim of this event is to help women to have a full-term pregnancy, as well as, healthy babies. Besides, the event assists families with a child, who has been placed in newborn intensive care. The event, though it has been successful, has not achieved the desired success. The reason for this is the bad image and reputation that affects the company. To improve the performance of this event, during its course, the company has to communicate with the customers and inform them about its new direction, which is customer-oriented, unlike before.
Reference
PRSA (2013). Turning Around the Most Hated Company in America. Retrieved from http://www.prsa.org/SearchResults/view/6BW-1316E22/0/Turning_Around_the_Most_Hated_Company_in_America#.VwlFFyE5Ecg
