Is Love at the Bottom of Better Marketing?

Thank you, Dale. Some great questions to consider. Coming from a non-profit (NP) service background, I’m especially interested in customer-centric communications.

I keep thinking about ways that NPs can utilize blogs and CMS to better reach their customers (clients) and bring them into a conversation that can effect change to the entire organization. Further, by engaging in the conversations, the clients/customers can be shown that there is more to the relationship than ‘them taking services” and the provider that “doles them out”.

Some people have said to me before, “Robert, isn’t it easier to be so personally concerned with clients who have disabilities than a customer looking to buy a product?” And, I say no. Sure, there is emotion for many in dealing with people who have disabilities. I guess I’m past that after so much exposure. I see people that need/want something, whether it be a service, appliance (like a wheelchair), rehabilitation or just attention. Doesn’t seem too hard to me to make the connection with the customers at any business. Just requires taking the time, making the effort, to get to know them.

Now since the first step in any communication process is to assure that you ‘know’ your audience - do research, doesn’t it make sense?

Dale,
This is a very interesting post. It certainly is idealistic for corporations to love their customers, isn’t it? But with the mega-corporations we have today, how is it even feasible? How can a company reflect its love for customers to so MANY customers? Maybe having a customer-centric motto is the only way to do this on a widespread level. This seems to touch on the idea of direct marketing, personal salesmen, etc. They try to actually tap in to specific people’s concerns, wants, and expectations.

Now that blogging is catching on in corporate settings, maybe it will become a more effective way to communicate this “love.” It may be a bit of a reversal, but using blogs could ultimately foster more personal relationships and give customers a way to become closer to the corporations. This would assume that blogs catch on more in the general public, and that the average person takes enough of an interest to keep up with his favorite blogs. Perhaps a love for the company can be established without the company having to reach out to every single potential customer in this way?

Do you think it is possible for a company to truly love its customers? How can it ever be accomplished?

Making genuine love for the customer the heart of a company sounds like a wonderful concept! How to make it happen, I would love to know. I think there would be a transforamation, internally and externally, if employees at all levels actively desired to meet the needs and concerns of thier customers. I think the love would have to successfully trickle down from every top executive to every frontliner. Is that impossible…probably?!?! But I do tend to be an optimist as well. So I like to think it is possilbe that people can show love in everything they do, but they must desire to do so.

Although I’m not quite sure how to show that love becuase I don’t even think delivering an excellent product at an excellent price with a smile transfers into love to the average customer.

I agree with Dianne that this would have to be something that started from the top and filtered through to every employee. I think it would be wonderful for a company to genuinly want to have this as their primary goal. I guess the only company that has even come close to this would be Disney back in the 50’s and 60’s. At the center of everthing it did was a desire to bring joy to their audience. And in return their audiences believed in everything that Disney created.
I guess I don’t see any company today being able to convey a sense of love to their customers. I think it’s a cultural change more than anything. But it should be something that a company should strive for and not just have it as a line in their mission statement.

Dale, have you read Tim Sanders’ Love is the Killer App? The basic premise is that as technology and information have changed the business landscape, to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace, you need a killer application. What is that application? It’s love. He puts forth the idea of being lovecats. Gone are the days of swimming with sharks, and enter the days of nice, smart people. Lovecats practice love business–intelligently sharing their intangibles with their bizpartners. These intangibles are our knowledge, our network, and our compassion. It’s co-opetition or the abundance mentality at its best.

Think about how blogging helps drive the lovecat way. One of the base traits of “love” is listening. Sanders talks about how the act of listening is absolutely critical to the act of connecting. In this new era of transparency, we’re beginning to see glimpses of the lovecat way. They’re out there. C’mon, show me the love.

Enough of the sappiness, but the book is an infectious must-read. Visit http://www.timsanders.com.

I know from experience that showing love and caring for the customers is the way to go. I worked at a vet office for about two years and the veterinarian built up his practice by showing that he cared. He had a bulletin board in his waiting room where clients could pictures of their pets. People love to show off their pets. Also, if someone’s pet died a sympathy card would be sent to the owner that the whole staff had signed. These are just small “PR love practices,” but they work. This vet office is now booming with more clients than they know what to do with.

Large vet offices have also took the incentive to show “PR love practices.” The AU Small Animal Clinic makes a clay paw for customers whose pets die at the clinic. A clay paw is the impession of the paw of a deceased pet in a piece of clay with their name also on the clay. It is cooked in an oven and given to the client so they can remember their pet. The hospital is a large facility, but they do this for each pet that dies there. That is what I call a “PR love practice.’

I liked reading this post. I certainly think having love in the atmosphere is a must have. If you do’nt show the people and customers how you care and what you sincerely mean to them, what do they expect from you? If you present a positive appearance and actually act in a way you mean, then all is well. Why not show caring and compassion for our customers? We are working for them and we wnat to please them with what we are doing. All is necessary is to have a positive attitude and to genuinely care for the people around us. The world always needs a little bit of love and I don’t see anything wrong with just being happy and sharing it with others. If you are happy, it can rub off on other people and I think this could be a good thing.

This post was interesting to me, especially just having seen the movie, “In Good Company.” I hate to bring up multimedia in this topic, but the movie actually contains the element of care mixing with work. Is it important to consider the feelings of customers and/or employees? I think in a way it is, but when it comes to relationships with customers, I think it’s taking it too far if you take your work home with you. What I mean is, it’s important like EWood said to present a positive appearance and to try and please them. However, I think if it gets personal, as in you arent happy if they arent happy, it may have gone too far. I don’t think your work will improve any if you “try extra hard for their feelings.” But maybe I’m being too insensitive. I work at an answering service, where my main priority is to help people get in touch with the people they need. I work my hardest to do what I need for them, but at the end of the day, when I haven’t reached someone that I was begged to reach, I don’t take that mistake home with me. In fact, I may forget about it. But in the real world, with corporate business, maybe it’s different.