Not quite Verbatim on ITV Thames Valley

Ah, the best laid plans... ITV Thames Valley Tonight did a terrific job covering the kind hearted gesture by call handling supremos Verbatim to handle the calls for one of its staff when she gives birth later this month... except they did not mention Verbatim by name!

Morgan PR always explain to clients that while public relations is the perfect way to promote the news stories within an organisation, the superior rewards of being in the news are tempered by the control you relinquish. If you want to guarantee what will appear in any medium and when, then advertising is the method - but of course does not attract the same objective consideration from the public.

All that said, it is not unreasonable to expect the hallowed six points of good journalism to be addressed - Who, What, Where, When, How & Why. These boxes were ticked, but only superficially - for example 'Who' is Donna Cox - which gets mentioned, but it is also founder and director of Verbatim Graham Hill and Verbatim itself, neither of which is mentioned.

On the brighter side, other media watch the news and are a bit more resourceful and one eagle-eyed publisher spotted my name on the text message that appears during the report and was quick to get in touch!

Below is what ITV showed last night - or rather it is what they showed with some helpful titles and subtitles to help fill in the gaps.

Getting on the telly: Morgan PR helps Verbatim, the phone answering service appear on Thames Valley Tonight

Morgan PR works closely with clients to help identify what they want public relations to achieve for their business and sometimes this can involve television exposure - this was certainly the case when Verbatim, the phone answering service came up with a brilliant idea to help one of their employees who is about to go on maternity leave - and this tempted the TV cameras.

Donna Cox is one of the team who answers the telephones at Verbatim, which can take overflow calls through to providing a full call handling service for its clients - which includes Morgan PR! She is expecting her second baby in a few weeks time and is just about to go on maternity leave safe in the knowledge she will be under less pressure than many pregnant women.

Above: Donna Cox is interviewed by ITV Thames Valley reporter Kate Cooney

Founder and director Graham Hill takes up the story: “Using the same service we provide to clients we are able to put Donna and her immediate family in control of the phone, and when they speak to people. They can turn the phone off to enjoy some peace and quiet, to spend some quality time with the new baby or even to get some vital sleep all without being disturbed.

“All of her callers would get to speak to the Verbatim team who could update on any progress and take all of the messages of congratulations and well wishes, then send them through to Donna.

“Our VIP list is normally used so we recognise our clients’ regular and important callers, however by getting Donna to input everyone she wants to know about her happy event, she can make one call to us and we can send a text message to everyone to let them know. We are also providing a 0845 telephone number so we can take messages and pass them on without callers disturbing Donna and her baby.”

From a PR point of view this is a lovely story and one that we were able to tempt ITV Thames Valley into covering a much of today was spent filming with them at Verbatim's offices on New Greenham Park, south of Newbury.

Above: Verbatim founder and director Graham Hill is interviewed.

We will need to wait until tomorrow night to discover how many seconds more than three hours of filming will result in, but this exposure will be the start of wider PR campaign.

New VIP Phone Service from Verbatim

Verbatim is well known in West Berkshire and beyond as The Phone Answering Service; it handles thousands of calls every day for companies large and small (including Morgan PR) so that no caller is faced with an engaged tone, endless ringing or hated answer phone.

Praised by customers for its professionalism, Verbatim is rolling out the red carpet with a new VIP service that adds a personal touch that has enhanced the service yet further.

I found out more when Morgan PR met with Joint MD at Verbatim, Graham Hill for a feature in the November edition of the Newbury Business News.

Essentially clients who provide Verbatim with the telephone numbers and other details of the clients, suppliers and even family and friends will benefit from a VIP service that recognises these callers and gives them the personal service you hope your own team would. Probably they'll do it better!

It would natural to assume such personal service comes at a price, but this is not the case, as Graham told me with a smile: “We were asked by some clients whether we would be charging a premium for this new service. However, we are most certainly not because we believe we should do our best for all of our clients no matter what they spend with us.”

For Morgan PR Verbatim has been one of our most powerful tools. Soon after we signed up we were contacted by a company in Andover looking for PR support; it turned out they had turned to Google to look for local public relations services, and Morgan PR was among the top three in Basingstoke, Andover and Newbury and the company called all three. Morgan PR was the only one who answered – or rather Verbatim handled the call for us. That one answered call led to initial business worth £2,000 and a lifetime value which will far exceed that. I know that without Verbatim that business would have been unwittingly lost.