Care is a big word

Posted on February 9th, 2010 by Spike and currently 6 commenting.

This blog post was inspired by a with Kira Wampler, Word of Mouth/Social Marketing Leader at Intuit Inc.

What do I care? Why should I care? What do your customers care about?

For the company that doesn’t, “care” is a four-letter word. For the company that does, “care” is a big word. Huge even. Because when you care, emotion enters into the equation. For some companies, emotion is a scary thing. Because emotion doesn’t show up as a line-item on a P&L report. Emotion can make things very sticky. And emotion is unpredictable.

But caring can be your greatest asset. Because when you allow your employees to care about their jobs, care about what happens to their fellow employees and care about their customers, there’s a shift in culture. I guarantee that when you walk in the doors of a company or have your first interaction with them online, you can tell the difference between a company that cares and a company that doesn’t care.

Yes, we all care about the bottom line. Because, like the Tequila Shots book says, we can’t make a difference if we cease to exist. But that’s a different kind of caring. I’m talking about the caring that comes when the times get tough. The kind of caring that comes with making sure you’re doing everything within your power to solve a person’s problem – even if they are a chronic complainer. And the caring that comes from believing that your customer’s success is your success.

So if you don’t care, then it’s going to be obvious to your employees and customers. And since love (or the lack of it) is a circular transaction, guess what? I guarantee that they aren’t going to care about you either. And good luck with that.