The Role of Public Relations in Enhancing Customer Satisfaction in Government Parastatals
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To examine the relation between the water corporation employees and the various public of the corporation whether the relationship is as it supplied to be
- To discover the effects of this public relations role in achieving the organization objectives.
- To find out the day to day activities of the public relations department in the water corporation
- To ascertain the level of customer contribution in the services rendered by Enugu state water corporation.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Generally, public relations (PR) play many responsibilities in building the image and reputation of an organization. According to (Hsu, Shyu and Tzeng, 2005:12), it provides the opportunity for the organization to successfully monitor, interact, and react with other key groups within the organizational environment. Thus, it is defined as: “…the communication and action on the part of an organization that supports the development and maintenance of mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and the groups with which it is interdependent” (Grunig 2002:54). # Further, it is a “management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the various publics on whom its success or failure depends” (Hill, 2000:23). PR can be seen as a function motivated by desires to understand or control the environment and to gain understanding from those in the environment, or alternatively, motivated by desires for mutual understanding (Grunig, 2002:32). Also, PR is not merely making a good impression, but more closely about fashioning and projecting credible renditions of reality itself. The services, policies, practices and products of an organization may be excellent, but unless the public understands these, and recognizes them for what they are, they will be neither used nor appreciated (Skinner 1994:26). Basically, the reality that public relations credibly render is the reputation of the company. Almost all PR practitioners agree that reputation is one of the keys for organizational success. It should be maintained because once it is tarnished; it could be very difficult to regain (Grunig 1992), though regaining reputation is one of the PR man’s job. (Gray, 1998:23) stated: “A company’s reputation affects its ability to sell products and services, to attract investors, to hire talented staff, and to exert influence in government circles” . Organizational reputation reflects employee attitudes and beliefs, customer perception, vendors and business partners as well as the community at large (Dozier and Lauzen, 2000). The PR man’s job is to publicize all those attributes and traits to the public and to the target people or organization. Many companies have gained enough positive reputation because of effective PR. For instance, Pepsi-Cola is respected for its moral and ethical values established all over the world. The corporate as well as the social responsibilities of the company contributed to their eventual popularity. Those facts about them do not just go out to the public with just mere benchmarking results. Rather, they are carefully publicized by public relation tactics (i.e. disseminated to broadsheets, tabloids, televised press conferences, etc.) That is why PR is closely related with corporate branding and governance. The management does the cultivation of the corporate brand, and then PR distributes the improvement and handles issues that are handful to the company’s image and reputation (Gray, 1998:67). Corporate brand refers to the overall characteristic of the organization, which provides: marks denoting ownership; image-building devices; symbols associated with key values; means by which to construct individual identities; and a conduit by which pleasurable experiences may be consumed (Cutlip, 2006:54). It communicates the brand’s values, i afford a means of differentiation from their competitors, and enhance the esteem and loyalty in which the organization is held by its stakeholder groups (Sriramesh & Vercid, 2001:89).Thus, marketing and sales strategies are dependent to the strengths or weaknesses of the corporate brands. If the positive values of the corporate brand are successfully publicized by the PR staff, then marketing strategies and sales strategies can use that good publicity to the corporation’s advantage. For instance, the advertisements of the Pepsi-Cola may include information regarding their reputation as a company that helps maintains a healthy environment for everyone. Because this is the company’s way of showing responsibility to the community, the elements related to those traits are likely to be shown in advertisements. However, this type of relationship between reputation and marketing and sales strategies is not widely researched. In fact, even the general public relations field is not widely researched (Sallot, Lyon, Acosta-Alzuru and Jones, 2003:45). Accordingly, lack of budget time are the two most given reasons.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought the role of public relations in enhancing customer’s satisfaction in government parastatals.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information the role of public relations in enhancing customer’s satisfaction in government parastatals. 200 staff of Enugu state water corporation, Enugu state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the role of public relations in enhancing customer’s satisfaction in government parastatals. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of public relations in enhancing customer’s satisfaction in government parastatals.
Summary
This study was on the role of public relations in enhancing customer’s satisfaction in government parastatals. Four objectives were raised which included: To examine the relation between the water corporation employees and the various public of the corporation whether the relationship is as it supplied to be, to discover the effects of this public relations role in achieving the organization objectives, to find out the day to day activities of the public relations department in the water corporation, to ascertain the level of customer contribution in the services rendered by Enugu state water corporation. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of Enugu state water corporation. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made human resource managers, administrative staff, public relation officers and junior lecturers were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
The study established that Public Relations Officers in Enugu state water corporation generally deliver on their duties despite some constraints. It is therefore imperative to encourage and facilitate them to perform even better in order to continue to build a positive image of government and publicize government development agenda and policies among the citizenry.
Recommendation
The study further recommends that PROs be made the official spokesperson of their respective departments or ministries to accord them the opportunity to expound on policy matters and engage more with the citizenry.
The study also recommends that officers deployed as PROs should be at least of the rank of Principal Public Communication Officer (Job Group ‘N’) to enhance their confidence, stature and bargaining power as their counterparts in administration, finance, and human resource departments
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