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HOW WAL-MART HANDLED AN AWKWARD PR PROBLEM

Written by: Nick Renton

Article Overview: The world's largest public corporation has an unusual approach to public relations.

HOW WAL-MART HANDLED AN AWKWARD PR PROBLEM

Wal-Mart is a large and important public company that runs a chain of big discount department stores in the United States and elsewhere. It is said to be the world's largest public corporation by both revenue and number of employees.

Its public relations activities help the company to build up its image and thus indirectly also that of the United States.

Recently groxx.com reported that an innocent Wal-Mart customer had been jailed for two days as a result of the company's unlawful actions and that the company then had had the gall to ask that customer for $200 towards its costs. The full story is reproduced below.

This caused an investor in the company to send it the following e-mail:

"The following appeared on groxx.com a few days ago.

"As a shareholder in Wal-Mart I was appalled.

"How much compensation did the company pay to the victim of this outrage?"

Astonishingly, this e-mail was completely ignored. For a significant company to treat one of its owners in such an offhand manner is a major disgrace, especially when he was raising a legitimate matter of concern. Such a negative outcome indicates extremely poor public relations and does nothing for the reputation and credibility of the company's board and management team.

The investor noted that Wal-Mart had a Global Ethics Office. This at least seemed a positive move in a public relations context. So he sent the same e-mail specifically to that Office.

To his great surprise, the reply said:

"Thank you for contacting the Global Ethics Office. Our objective is to provide guidance for ethical dilemmas and to ensure formal review for behavior inconsistent with the Wal-Mart Statement of Ethics. As described, your concerns do not require an Ethics review. However, a review of your concern may be necessary. Your concern would best be addressed by contacting Media Relations."

But there is a problem with that: While public relations activity can usually assist a legitimate cause, it can never make a bad product or a bad service look good.

Nevertheless, the investor sent the same e-mail to the company's media relations people. However, this also was ignored, thus reaffirming the company's arrogant "we don't care what the world thinks of us" attitude.

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groxx.com:

TSU student jailed on bogus Wal-Mart forgery charge

03:23 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 11, 2008

By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

A college student's trip to Wal-Mart last month ended with her in handcuffs and a two-day stay in the Harris County jail.

Nitra Gipson was charged with felony forgery after the Meyer Park Wal-Mart manager accused her of passing bogus money orders. Thing is, the money orders were legit and had been purchased at Wal-Mart to begin with.

The cash-strapped college student had just sold her car to pay for her last two semesters at Texas Southern University, where she is studying criminal justice. She was paid with Wal-Mart money orders, which the giant retailer advertises as "good as cash".

In Gipson's case, they were as good as time behind bars.

"Humiliating is not the word for it," said Gipson. "I was horrified. I think they singled me out because of the amount of money that it was and (thought) I was trying to get over on them."

No manner of effort by Gipson to show that the money orders were legit worked. The store manager insisted she be charged.

The district attorney's office saw it differently. Charges were dropped after the money orders were verified when Gipson provided the purchase receipts.

But after spending 48 hours behind bars, the damage had already been done.

"Wal-Mart should be held responsible and accountable for letting this child go to jail for two days. All because she was doing what any customer of Wal-Mart should do," said community activist Quannel X.

Gipson said Wal-Mart then added insult to injury when she got a letter in the mail.

"I started to read it and thought, `Oh, my God. They are asking me to pay them when it was clearly their mistake,'" said Gipson.

The letter demanded Gipson pay Wal-Mart $200 to settle a shoplifting charge. It is a charge that never existed, though.

When 11 News contacted Wal-Mart officials they said they were looking into the case and would provide no further details.

The spokesperson did claim that the decision to pursue charges was up to the law enforcement officials on the scene. But the copy of the criminal complaint obtained by 11 News shows that the store manager is who pressed charges.

(end of groxx.com report)

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Article Tags: credibility, discount department stores, disgrace, e mail, ethical dilemmas, ethics office, few days, global ethics, legitimate cause, management team, media relations, negative outcome, outrage, public relations activities, public relations activity, reply, s board, shareholder, unlawful actions, wal mart



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