Category Archives: Talking to your customers

Citizenship, corporate responsibility, sustainability, society: does it matter what you call your company’s sustainability efforts?

Sustainability, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Uncategorized

What’s in a name? Well, quite a lot. Just ask Reg Dwight or David Jones*. But does the same principle apply in the slightly less starry (but far more significant) world of corporate sustainability? In days gone by, it used to all be about corporate social responsibility (CSR), but almost no one seems to call it that anymore – it’s become the Reg Dwight of sustainability.

So what should you be calling your company’s sustainability efforts? A random poll of the group websites of a number of FTSE 100 companies proves that there is, as yet, no real consensus.

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The 2014 FTSE 100
what we call ‘sustainability’ survey

Aviva – Corporate Responsibility
BAE Systems – Corporate Responsibility
Barclays – Citizenship
Barratt Developments – Sustainability
BP – Sustainability
BSkyB – Bigger Picture
BT – Better Future
Burberry – Corporate Responsibility
Co-op Group – Ethics and Sustainability
Glaxosmithkline – Responsibility
Legal and General – CSR
Marks and Spencer – Plan A
Morrisons – Corporate Responsibility
National Grid – Responsibility
Next – Corporate Responsibility
Persimmon Homes – Corporate Responsibility
RBS – Sustainability
Rolls Royce – Sustainability
Royal Mail – Responsibility
RSA – Corporate Responsibility
Sainsbury’s – Responsibility
Schroders – Corporate Responsibility
Tesco – Tesco and Society
Travis Perkins – Citizenship
Tui Travel – Sustainability
Vodafone – Sustainability
WPP – Sustainability

Corporate responsibility, the child of CSR, is still prominent while a simple ‘responsibility’ (the grandchild?) still features, but ‘sustainability’ appears to be the new kid on the block, with a sprinkling of others: citizenship, ethics and some others,  BSkyB’s Bigger Picture and Marks and Spencer’s Plan A, the stand out candidates.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter as long as whatever you call it resonates with who you’re communicating with. If your employees, clients, suppliers and partners understand and identify with corporate responsibility that’s all that matters. Why not ask them what they think? That said, I applaud the likes of BSKyB and Marks and Spencers for applying some original thought which perhaps suggests they’ve given sustainability more than just a passing thought?

Do customers not care?
What my ‘exhaustive’ survey of FTSE 100 businesses also revealed, was that while most businesses give home page links to their sustainability efforts (with one or two exceptions where sustainability is hidden a level down) on their group sites, when it comes to their consumer facing websites, there’s usually no sign.

Why not? Do they think their customers are not interested? Is it only shareholders and analysts looking at group sites that want to know about a business’s sustainability credentials? Perhaps that was the case, but I increasingly think that consumers are more savvy about the businesses they buy from and often make decisions based not just on price but on a range of other factors. Just look at the tax backlash against the likes of Starbucks and Amazon.

It seems to me
So, you can call sustainability whatever you like in your business provided it has relevance and meaning to your main audiences – don’t call it sustainability if that simply switches off the very people you’re trying to inspire for example. That said, whatever you call it, if its communicated poorly, you might just as well light a candle in the wind…

*Elton John and David Bowie .

 

We’re all natural born story tellers: so why not liven up your communications and tell one?

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

“When you have a story it’s absolutely natural to try and tell it.” At least that’s the view of novelist and playwright Michael Frayn speaking on the radio the other day.

From the moment we learn to speak, read and write we all love stories. And it’s a very effective communication method. It’s our brains apparently. Hear a compelling story and the grey matter is flooded with oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin – hormones all associated with rewards, pleasure and well-being.

once upon a timeWhy then, do we lose the art of good story telling in our work lives?

The trouble is, storytelling can seem like a risk. It can be easier to shelter behind the day to day jargon and ‘safe’ harbour walls of the corporate patois. But you know what? That stuff is neither fun to write or to read and nor is it always very effective in getting a message through.

Every story should have…
So what makes a good story? There is no scientific formula for writing a good story but like a good song you’ll want to hear it to the end; you’ll feel engaged with it; you might laugh, cry, or even think deeply about it; and, you’ll remember bits about it.

But there are elements any self respecting story needs to have:

  • A hero. And no, it can’t be your brand but it could be a customer, an employee, or even a thing!
  • Structure. Beginning. Middle. End. No one says though you need to tell it in that order though. Think Pulp Fiction.
  • There’ll be a big issue to resolve
  • There’ll be troubles on the way
  • There’ll be a resolution of some sort – perhaps a big reveal too
  • Or perhaps there’ll be a cliff hanger ‘till next time?

Next time you have a communications challenge, think up a quest, throw in a few ‘mission impossibles’, and let your hero loose!

Bin your website section on CSR if you really want to be known as a socially responsible business

Sustainability, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

I can’t help feeling that when it comes to communicating corporate social responsibility(CSR), it’s still a bit of a tick box exercise for many businesses.

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Piece on CSR in the website somewhere. Tick.
Piece on CSR in the annual report somewhere. Tick. Tick.
Some community related news on the intranet somewhere. Triple tick.

So big green ticks all round which is fine of course if, as a business, you’re not really committed to CSR and don’t consider it to be an integral part of what you do, and what you want to be known for.

This piece on integrated reporting in last month’s PR Week makes for an interesting read. Integrated reporting, the article says, ‘describes a movement in corporate reporting to intertwine the financial information in annual reports and the non-financial content usually found in separate CSR reports’.

If there is real commitment to CSR from the board level down, shouldn’t integrated reporting be obvious, and shouldn’t every piece of communication help illustrate what your business stands for when it comes to the environment, the community around you, and how your business functions in a sustainable way?

Get rid of the CSR section
So why have a separate CSR section on your website (or even a separate site altogether as I’ve seen with some) or intranet. Why not integrate elements of CSR throughout the site? And how about abandoning that hurried attempt in the annual report to pull together all your charitable endeavours and try to reflect your company’s CSR approach throughout the report. Think about every single touch point your business has with employees, clients, and other stakeholders and ask yourself whether it communicates your CSR values.

A luxury car maker doesn’t need to have a section on its website somewhere that says ‘luxury’, it simply reflects those values throughout its brand; in its product, how it behaves and how it communicates. Communicating CSR should be no different.

 

To boldly go…grammar rules are there to be broken

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

Nurse: “Would you like me to gently prop you up?”
Elderly patient: “My dear, try never to split your infinitives.”

BlackboardSplit infinitives. Does anyone care anymore? Well, yes, lots of people do care and I’m not knocking them. Having said that, language changes and evolves, and so should our interpretation of the rules.

 

A pedant’s obsession with rooting out split infinitives for example, seems unnecessary particularly when a re- write would sound, well;

Nurse: “Would you like me to prop you up, but gently?”

…clumsy.

It’s important to know what’s wrong and what’s right, but good writing can exploit that knowledge to flout the rules and create interest. The point being: Rules. Are. There. To. Be. Broken. Sometimes.

And, another thing, who said you can’t start a sentence (or a paragraph) with a conjunction? But just make sure you don’t overdo it.

Good PR shouldn’t sound like PR

Talking to your customers

I heard a Chief Executive the other day providing some perfectly legitimate information about the performance of his business and then being derided by the business journalist interviewing him as providing  ‘just a load of PR’. Unfair, I thought.

It’s funny how an industry – Public Relations – that devotes itself to managing the reputations of others, has such a shabby reputation itself. The media, the public, all demand greater transparency and access to information. But when it comes, that extra information is derided as ‘puff’ or manipulative PR.

It’s all good
Who’s to blame? Well, we all are to some extent. Hiding behind corporate and financial jargon doesn’t help. Who watched the BBC’s Twenty Twelve mocumentary on the Olympics and failed to recognise some element of truth in the ludicrous language pedalled by the team.

What to do about it? We could perhaps start by working with the spokespeople we work with and ‘rehearse’ to talk in a language that not only makes sense but is emotionally more engaging.

The Chief Executive of Ocado was also on Radio 4 talking about the performance of his business the other day. He undoubtedly had some good news to share but much of it was hidden behind phrases like:  “there’s an enormous channel shift, we’re at an inflexion point in the market” or “customers who rely on us to deliver outstanding quality to their homes”. In both instances, I know what he means but I can almost hear the journalist sighing.

What about sharing an interesting delivery anecdote for instance, or some feedback from a customer? Don’t tell me the market is at an inflexion point, tell me about how many thousands of loaves of bread have been bought online in the last 12 months?

The point is, we can help people like the Chief Executives of the world relate what they do in a way that not only makes for better radio/TV/ or whatever channel you choose, but might actually do a great deal for stripping away the general cynicism that PR has attracted.

After all, really good PR shouldn’t sound like PR at all.