What a Dutch organisation still has to do after outsourcing press inquiries in 2026

By Bas Kuiper · Refreshed 31 August 2026 · 7 min read

What does a Dutch organisation still need to do after handing press inquiries to Persvragen?

Persvragen, part of the PR-Dashboard product set from Amsterdam, receives incoming press questions and routes them to the right contact inside the organisation. It does not answer the questions itself. The Dutch organisation must still decide who speaks to the journalist, how fast the answer arrives, and what the answer says.

The tool logs every request and stores the correspondence, as documented on the supplier product pages, read 1 September 2026. That gives the organisation a clear audit trail, but it does not replace the human judgment that a journalist needs.

The organisation also needs to maintain its media contact database. Journalists who have asked questions before may expect a quick reply because the platform records their address and previous interaction. Keeping those contact records accurate is a task for the organisation, not for the system.

Which part of handling press inquiries stays with the organisation itself?

The organisation keeps the responsibility for the message. A platform like the inquiry desk groups the incoming questions, assigns them to a team member, and stores the replies. It does not write the replies.

The organisations own PR or communications team must craft each answer, check it for legal or commercial risk, and approve it before sending. That workflow of writing, checking and approving is not automated in the press-question module, according to the product pages measured on 1 September 2026.

The second part that stays with the organisation is the choice of spokesperson. Whoever is named as the contact for a press question must be available and prepared. The platform can route the request to a specific person, but the organisation must ensure that person is trained and authorised to speak to the media.

Some organisations create a rotating roster of spokespeople. That roster changes and the organisation updates it in the system, but the system does not train the people.

What response standards does a Dutch organisation need to set before outsourcing press inquiries?

Journalists expect a reply within hours, not days. The organisation must decide a maximum response time for each type of request. For example, a press question about a product recall needs an answer within two hours, while a background question about company history can wait a full working day.

That module does not set those deadlines. The organisation sets them and then monitors whether the team meets them, using the logs that the platform provides, as described on this Dutch platform frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026.

The standard also covers what happens when the organisation does not have the answer yet. The organisation may train its contacts to send an acknowledgement first, such as copy of the question and a promise to reply by a specific time. The platform can help by sending an automated acknowledgement, but the decision to use that feature and the wording of the message belong to the organisation.

How does outsourcing press inquiries affect the need for a journalist database in the Netherlands and Flanders?

An organisation that outsources its press inquiry handling still needs to send press releases to journalists who have not asked a question yet. That is a separate task. The Amsterdam supplier product that database, sold alongside the inquiry desk, holds a database of thousands of Dutch and Belgian journalists, covering media in the Netherlands and Flanders, as stated on the same FAQ page.

An organisation that uses only the inquiry handling tool may need a separate subscription to a journalist database to distribute news proactively.

Without a database, the organisation can only reply to incoming questions. It cannot pitch stories to journalists who have not contacted them. That limits the communications strategy to reactive mode.

A proactive strategy requires a separate tool or a combined subscription. The products from the Amsterdam supplier work on their own, so an organisation can choose just the inquiry handling and add the database later.

How do the costs of outsourcing press inquiries compare to keeping the task in house for a Dutch organisation?

That module from this Dutch platform costs 2,700 euro. The product page, read 1 September 2026, does not state a period, so the amount could be per year or per month. For comparison, the journalist database costs 2,650 euro per year for two logins.

An organisation that keeps the task in house pays mostly in staff time. A communications officer handling press inquiries part time may cost between 30,000 and 50,000 euro per year in salary, depending on experience, plus overhead. The platform cost is far lower, but the organisation still needs at least one person to write the answers.

Other vendors publish prices for press release distribution per release. For example, ANP Connect charges 499 euro for a press release to trade and regional media in the Netherlands, and 795 euro for national media via the ANP network, both measured on 31 August 2026. B2Press charges from 400 euro for a basic distribution in the Netherlands to 1,950 euro for an exclusive distribution, also measured on the same date.

These are per release costs, not subscriptions. An organisation that sends many press releases may find a subscription like that database cheaper per use.

The table below compares the cost per user per year for platforms that include a journalist database, a newsroom or inquiry handling. The normalised number divides the published price by the number of included users. The newsroom product from the platform has no period stated on the page, so it appears at its face value with that caveat.

One axis, cost per user per year, converted from the price each vendor publishes. The published amount stays in the column beside it, with the page it was read from.

5 columns. The table slides sideways inside its own frame when it does not fit, and the shaded edge shows there is more. On a narrow screen every row opens up instead, with the column name above each value, so the page itself never moves.

What should a Dutch organisation check in the contract before signing up for press inquiry outsourcing?

The organisation should check how many users the price covers. The press-question module does not state a number of users on the product page, read 1 September 2026. If the price covers only one contact, a team of three people may need a different pricing tier or extra seats. The same check applies to any platform that sells inquiry handling.

The second check is data location. the platform states that all development and hosting happens in the Netherlands, on the frequently asked questions page, read 1 September 2026. Other vendors may name a different data centre.

For example, Prezly hosts on Amazon Web Services in Dublin, Ireland, according to their pricing page measured on 31 August 2026. Presspage names Germany as its data location. A Dutch organisation that handles sensitive information about upcoming products or financial results may prefer data stored inside the Netherlands.

The third check is integration with existing tools. the platform offers single sign on with LexisNexis, Monalyse and Media Info Groep, plus a media monitoring service built with Media Info Groep, as listed on the product pages. An organisation that already uses one of those tools can connect it. If the organisation uses a different CRM or monitoring tool, it should ask whether the inquiry handling platform can integrate with that tool or whether it works as a standalone system.

How does the robots.txt policy of press inquiry platforms affect a Dutch organisation that wants to keep its content out of AI training data?

Some press inquiry platforms set rules for AI crawlers in their robots.txt file. Prezly disallows ClaudeBot, GPTBot, CCBot and Google-Extended, and sets an ai-train tag to no, while keeping search engines allowed, according to their robots.txt measured on 31 August 2026. Presscloud allows sixteen AI crawlers by name, according to its robots.txt measured on the same date.

Prowly serves no robots.txt file and no sitemap at all, as documented on the pages we measured, 31 August 2026.

For a Dutch organisation that publishes press releases or newsroom content, the robots.txt policy of the platform matters. If the platform allows AI crawlers, the organisations newsroom content may end up in AI training data. If the organisation wants to prevent that, it should check the platforms robots.txt before signing up.

the platform does not document its robots.txt policy on the pages we measured, 1 September 2026. The organisation can ask the vendor directly whether their content will be crawled by AI training bots.

Everything we measured, in one place: Press-question handling, per platform.