“Thank You” and SXSW
“Caring is scalable.” — Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy
I frequent a downtown restaurant around the corner from where I work. The food isn’t anything special and the service is slightly above average, but when I walk in they greet me and they generally know what I am going to order. Last year when I waddled in eight-months pregnant, they asked how I felt and when the baby was due. Today they ask if the new baby is crawling and getting along with her older sister.
This year at SXSW in the panels and talks that I attended, I observed similar themes related to service and caring. Companies are using social media platforms to share and promote their stories and products. But are they doing it in the right way? Most companies are currently using new media channels to reach their current and potential customers. But they are only PUSHING their message out, thus creating one-way conversations. It seems like these companies are overlaying traditional marketing best practices on all online/digital communications. Most companies aren’t engaging their customer in an interpersonal way, and they can’t see the benefits of responding and listening to their end users.
In Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book The Thank You Economy, Gary uncovers opportunities for even more personalization — individual attention that will perhaps change the way some companies relate and communicate to their customers (Zappos) and create new business models such as TOMS Shoes, which donates one pair of shoes to children in need for every pair sold.
As Vanderchuk points out:
“Now customers’ demands for authenticity, originality, creativity, honesty, and good intent have made it necessary for companies and brands to revert to a level of customer service rarely seen since our great-grandparents’ day, when business owners often knew their customers personally and gave them individual attention.”
It’s exciting to think that existing and emerging companies will use innovative technologies to invent new ways to create more opportunities for relationships, growth, and profit based on caring. As a design professional with a new interest in service design, I can’t wait to see the impact that these new communications/interactions have on the way we relate to the places and products we use everyday.
