The Importance of Community Relations
What is community relations?
Community relations is defined here as “a firm’s interactions with the people constituting the environment it operates in and draws resources from, to foster mutual understanding, trust, and support”. It’s very important for a business to be involved with their community because it not only raises awareness that the business is there, but it also creates a bond with the community that will lead to higher sales and a better reputation for the business.
How community relations benefits the business.
Let use two pizza places as an example on why community relations is beneficial. Pizza place one has good pizza, decent prices and has been in the community for a couple years, they don’t really get too involved with anything in the community. Pizza place two, much like Pizza place one, has good pizza, decent prices, and has been around for a couple years, but they are very involved in the community. They provide pizza for the local high school football games, do fundraisers to help many different community organizations, and the owners are always present at community get together’s handing out coupons and free samples. Pizza place two will have a stronger bond with their community, which in turn causes more people to purchase their pizza from that business. Seeing the business name all over school functions, community fundraisers, etc. will remind the community of the business, and getting a chance to get to know the owners personally will create loyalty to the pizza business. With Pizza place one, many in the community may even forget it’s there, because they are always reminded of Pizza place two.
How community relations benefits the community.
Not only does community relations benefit the business, but it also benefits the community. Like in the Pizza place example, the community is benefited better from Pizza place two because they are providing them pizza for football games, helping them raise money for good causes, and giving them coupons to help save money. They also benefit from feeling strong as a community and feeling as though the business and the community have their back because when the community comes together it always makes for a positive reinforcement.
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