In a comment on my post “On the hunt for new ideas”, Ash asks what I think about consumer transparency. Me have an opinion? 
I’m more than glad to oblige.
For anyone who needs some help slicing through the jargon, consumer transparency is a pretty universal term for “being honest” in all sorts of ways. Most obviously, it means being straight with your customers, especially when things go wrong.
For example, if you’re super-successful and suddenly find that you don’t have enough widgets to send out to your customers, you get the CEO to be very public about the problem. He needs to exceed the customers’ expectations in terms of refunds or other recompense.
The idea is simple: in today’s very public world, with online forums, blogs, consumer groups etc., the general public has more power than ever before to influence a company’s reputation. This should act as a natural brake on corporate irresponsibility, and therefore businesses are wise to keep their service up to an acceptable standard.
Oh, the naivety!
I do believe in people power, but only to a degree. There are certainly some cracking examples of corporate reputations being tarnished by sloppy service in the short term. A good UK example would be the scramble for TalkTalk’s effectively free internet service. A victim of their own success, takeup was so high that service suffered. The Carphone Warehouse’s Charles Dunstone was way too late with an apology, and not impressive when it came to resolving the problem. (The internet sector is full of these stories, especially as intermediaries can always blame stoic old BT).
But has this affected TalkTalk in the long run? Not really. The Great British Public knows its place- if a service is cheap price-wise, you can’t be surprised if it’s a bit wobbly at times. In the US, what we ruefully accept in the name of service wouldn’t be given the time of day.
So I don’t think many large companies really take this sort of thing seriously. They know that we’re remarkably tolerant, and in any case, one thing the UK is very good at is crisis PR. We can always pick up the pieces later. For a great example, try to find BA’s latest – and very clever- online ad, promoting the improvements at Heathrow Terminal Five. You see, you’d forgotten already, hadn’t you?
However… where the transparency motto really does carry traction is for small companies who have the willpower and agility to build transparency right into the heart of their operations.
I don’t believe for one moment that an underpaid customer service rep working for my utility company in a stucco-grey call centre has my best interests at heart. But I do believe that an expert in a small company is going to offer me genuine consumer transparency. And he(/she) isn’t doing it because of his targets, or some diktat from the Corporate Social Responsibility Department. He’s doing it because it’s his job, a job he takes pride in. To me, consumer transparency is just a new name for decent service.
Filed under: marketing, service | Tagged: agility, BA, blog, BT, business, carphone warehouse, charles dunstone, consumer group, consumer transparency, corporate social responsibility, crisis PR, customer service, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, forum, people power, reputation, reputation management, service, start your own business, talktalk
