The Power of Sharing Your Company's Labor Identity

by Michael Keane

Who Made All This Stuff?

Why Letting Your Customer Base in on your Labor Identity Can Increase Loyalty

Recently, I was watching a Ted Talk by Matt Ridley (link here) named “When Ideas Have Sex” that was focused on awareness of who and how many people and ideas were involved in the making of the product or service that you have purchased. Funny enough, I had a Fleet Feet bag with a couple of pairs of socks from Balega that I had just purchased earlier in the day sitting next to me on the couch. On the packaging, there was a picture of a member of their inspection team and how to get a hold of the company. This simple step of identifying a member of their team provided me with an extra bit of confidence in the product. Letting customers know in some manner who is involved in making your product or service provides an added level of comfort and support that can only assist in developing and improving the business to customer relationship.

The discussion on the topic of knowing who worked on creating the product or service a customer purchased is increasing. Spending according to personal ethos is also growing in the marketplace. With technology and other tools, customers are better able to analyze whether or not their ethos is supported by the product or service that a company provides. When companies are transparent to customers with their team, there will be a benefit in that they will be better able to legitimize their message to the marketplace and will tend to attract a more loyal customer base quicker. Another benefit of allowing the customer access to their labor identity is that it will also improve the company's focus on attracting the talent needed to run a successful business. It could spur hiring within a certain area or particular demographic group. Some companies are already doing this. One example that I like is the commercials currently being run by the cereal Honey Bunches of Oats. They have employees directly involved in the commercials and become the face of the company. My experience with the Balega sock purchase is another good example.

When I opened up the packaging to my new running socks, I was greeted with a sticker identifying (with a picture) who inspected them before they were delivered to Fleet Feet. Even though this is the first time I have purchased the Balega brand of socks, seeing that little sticker gave me some satisfaction in knowing that I have an avenue of communication if I have an issue or to simply convey my level of satisfaction on the socks. By putting a personal identity on the socks, Balega also gave me reason to have the opinion that this person is trained and does good work.   Knowing that Balega is willing to take the risk and put a face to their quality control openly gives me trust in the company

To be fair, the market is full of companies who keep their operations secret. Unfortunately, one reason why some companies do this is because of their fear that customers will find out how cheaply they treat employees, products, and services. Tech hardware and agriculture companies are famous for this type of process. But this style of business model is becoming harder and harder to implement as communication technology continues to improve. It is getting more and more difficult to keep the customer away from knowing all there is to know about the product or service.

Putting a labor identity on your product or service can be a strong message to the customer as to how much you believe in your company's mission and focus.. It shows belief in their products and employees. It most certainly needs to be part of the company’s culture that all employees should be the face of the company. It shows that the company is proud of their employee training and not afraid to show it. A certain level of customer loyalty can be traced back to these concepts.  

For more information on this post, companies or individuals mentioned in this post, or KeaneVCC, feel free to reply or email your comments to keanevcc@gmail.com. If you are looking for assistance in your company's mission development, or or your company's culture development, send an email to the above address and we will discuss options to improve.

All opinions are the author's alone. Please do your own do due diligence before acting on information contained in this article.