Does your company care? Do you?

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Awakening, Customer Service, Marketing, Rant

Warning: this content is older than 365 days. It may be out of date and no longer relevant.

While in the airport yesterday perusing a variety of marketing materials (aka billboards as I walked to my gate), I saw a bunch of different advertisements by companies about how much they care, from facility maintenance to oil to the airlines themselves. This inspired a late afternoon tweet:

If all your marketing materials insist that you care, you probably don’t.

Within a few minutes, Sophia asked the very on-point question:

brightwings: @cspenn curious. what would demonstrate “caring” to your way of thinking & satisfaction?

Caring is one of those terms that falls under the same category as cool. Saying that you care is far less impactful than actually caring.

What is caring? It’s hard to define but easy to spot. Take your pick of any of the things that people at companies do, from your local favorite restaurant server remembering the way you like your martini to an airline flight attendant doing the mandatory preflight announcement slightly differently:

Not caring is even easier to see. It’s business as usual, paying lip service to the idea that the people giving you money as customers might actually matter, and putting yourself before your customers. I worked for a company once where I watched as a customer service representative was told – in all seriousness – to care less, answer the phones more quickly, get the customer off the phone more quickly and get them to buy something online, and avoid helping them in order to maintain call volume, because phone calls cost money.

Caring isn’t a corporate directive that marketing can create from thin air, much as we might try or want to. Caring comes from a company’s corporate culture at every level, from the CEO to the janitor.

Maybe you’re in charge of a company, a department, a workgroup, and you want to evolutionize (note the missing letter R) the culture into one that cares. How do you do that? Take whatever it is you’re doing and reframe it as a mission. Not a B-school mission statement, but a real mission, a holy cause, a calling. Find or create a noble aspect to whatever it is you do, something that you can truly be passionate, even zealous about, and recenter your focus on that.

Sales will get easier because you will exude the subtle, powerful confidence that comes from speaking about something you believe in. Customer service will get easier because your customers will align to your beliefs or choose a different company to work with. Marketing will get much easier because you will rarely have to question whether the work you are doing is effective or not – you just have to determine if it is in line with your mission. Running the company itself will get easier because you won’t have to browbeat workers into coming to work or doing good work. The cause and the passion it fuels will do that for you; you need to maintain, encourage, and foster that faith, remaining true to your mission.

What demonstrates caring? When you have something to believe in and something worth fighting for, caring demonstrates itself.

What’s your mission?

Comments

17 responses to “Does your company care? Do you?”

July 1, 2010

ericgohs

I can truly say that the company I work – Lands' End – cares about its customers. There's a big quote on the wall near my office from our founder that says, “I will never be critical of any action you take on behalf of our customers.” I love that quote because it not only puts the customer at the center of things, it's phrased in a way that just implies personal ownership/authority lives with every employee. In other words, you won't get in trouble for doing what's right for your customer. No need to ask, just do what's right. Instilling that kind of attitude is what helps create lasting culture of caring and not just a fleeting bullet point on your next PowerPoint deck.

Reply
July 1, 2010

Erik

How would you suggest a company that actually cares go about making the public aware of that fact? If you are small people might not have a long relationship with your brand or staff before needing your product. How would you go about illustrating your caring culture quickly without coming off as insincere?

Reply
July 1, 2010

Christopher S. Penn

Instead of saying you care, illustrate ways in which you do. Real testimonials from existing customers are a great, easy way to show that. When you Google for the company, do you see people raving about them, even if there's not that many? Are you helpful? Do you live up to the promises you make? Word of mouth is incredibly potent even at the small scale, and it's convenient since future customers are likely to be similar to existing customers.

Reply
July 1, 2010

DJ Waldow

Eric – I know that you guys care. The fact that you sent @babywaldow an blanket with her twitter name on it speaks volumes … especially because we've never met face to face (or even talked on the phone or exchanged emails!). You along with the other individuals in the Lands' End office really impressed me that day and still do.

You definitely care.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow

Reply
July 1, 2010

ericgohs

Thanks, DJ. And not to create a lovefest, but I can say that I've recommended BSF to colleagues at other companies as an ESP option because of the connections you and other folks create. What it all comes down to is that everyone in business is selling something. Are you selling a product or a relationship is where good companies separate themselves. It's a heck of a lot easier to return a shirt (or e-mail platform) than it is to “return” a relationship.

Reply
July 1, 2010

ericgohs

I can truly say that the company I work – Lands' End – cares about its customers. There's a big quote on the wall near my office from our founder that says, “I will never be critical of any action you take on behalf of our customers.” I love that quote because it not only puts the customer at the center of things, it's phrased in a way that just implies personal ownership/authority lives with every employee. In other words, you won't get in trouble for doing what's right for your customer. No need to ask, just do what's right. Instilling that kind of attitude is what helps create lasting culture of caring and not just a fleeting bullet point on your next PowerPoint deck.

Reply
July 1, 2010

Erik

How would you suggest a company that actually cares go about making the public aware of that fact? If you are small people might not have a long relationship with your brand or staff before needing your product. How would you go about illustrating your caring culture quickly without coming off as insincere?

Reply
July 1, 2010

Christopher S. Penn

Instead of saying you care, illustrate ways in which you do. Real testimonials from existing customers are a great, easy way to show that. When you Google for the company, do you see people raving about them, even if there's not that many? Are you helpful? Do you live up to the promises you make? Word of mouth is incredibly potent even at the small scale, and it's convenient since future customers are likely to be similar to existing customers.

Reply
July 1, 2010

Eric Gohs

Thanks, DJ. And not to create a lovefest, but I can say that I’ve recommended BSF to colleagues at other companies as an ESP option because of the connections you and other folks create. What it all comes down to is that everyone in business is selling something. Are you selling a product or a relationship is where good companies separate themselves. It’s a heck of a lot easier to return a shirt (or e-mail platform) than it is to “return” a relationship.

Reply
July 1, 2010

DJ Waldow

Eric – I know that you guys care. The fact that you sent @babywaldow an blanket with her twitter name on it speaks volumes … especially because we've never met face to face (or even talked on the phone or exchanged emails!). You along with the other individuals in the Lands' End office really impressed me that day and still do.

You definitely care.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow

Reply
July 2, 2010

Batman

As always, it's the whole sandbox vs. litterbox argument. Or discussion, actually. One you want to be in, the other, you don't. Only you can decide which you're in, and what you're going to do about it.

Reply
July 2, 2010

Lloyd Burrell

It's so much easier to show that you care in a small business environment, whereas in a corporate space, the client is just a figure among other figures. When it comes to corporate, you can only show you care in direct contact. If this is not the case, companies' only hope is to state it: big banners, covering buildings, carrying the message: “… because we care!” or variations on the same subject.

Lloyd Burrell
Publisher
http://www.officedeskreviews.com

Reply
July 2, 2010

Lloyd Burrell

It's so much easier to show that you care in a small business environment, whereas in a corporate space, the client is just a figure among other figures. When it comes to corporate, you can only show you care in direct contact. If this is not the case, companies' only hope is to state it: big banners, covering buildings, carrying the message: “… because we care!” or variations on the same subject.

Lloyd Burrell
Publisher
http://www.officedeskreviews.com

Reply
July 2, 2010

Doug Spak

Good post. Let me add one more “catch all” word to the dialogue: passion. I love how companies (especially marketing-services companies/ad agencies) love to claim their passion for the business, for the client's products, for Lebron James, etc. I worked for a guy, a Brit, who seemed to use passion in every other sentence. In presentations, the rest of the staff would have a pool to guess how many times the boss would drop the “P-bomb.” The record that still stands today: 17 passions in less than an hour. The problem was, he was the antithesis of passion…very stiff, formal and awkward. My point: you don't tell someone your passionate. You prove your passion in every aspect of your business or personal life. Show me, don't tell me. Thanks again for the post.

Reply
July 2, 2010

Doug Spak

Good post. Let me add one more “catch all” word to the dialogue: passion. I love how companies (especially marketing-services companies/ad agencies) love to claim their passion for the business, for the client's products, for Lebron James, etc. I worked for a guy, a Brit, who seemed to use passion in every other sentence. In presentations, the rest of the staff would have a pool to guess how many times the boss would drop the “P-bomb.” The record that still stands today: 17 passions in less than an hour. The problem was, he was the antithesis of passion…very stiff, formal and awkward. My point: you don't tell someone your passionate. You prove your passion in every aspect of your business or personal life. Show me, don't tell me. Thanks again for the post.

Reply
July 2, 2010

Batman

As always, it's the whole sandbox vs. litterbox argument. Or discussion, actually. One you want to be in, the other, you don't. Only you can decide which you're in, and what you're going to do about it.

Reply
July 2, 2010

Batman

As always, it's the whole sandbox vs. litterbox argument. Or discussion, actually. One you want to be in, the other, you don't. Only you can decide which you're in, and what you're going to do about it.

Reply