“Have you hugged a Customer today?”
It’s a phrase that you will see around the checkout lanes of IKEA stores around the world, complete with a heart-shaped pillow with arms on it.
Many businesses profess to love their clients and partners. Yet, in a world where people try to hide behind email and save a plane ride in lieu of a burdensome conference call, most executives rarely leave their respective “caves” and actually get to know the lifeblood of their businesses – people! – beyond what appears on a spreadsheet summary.
Attempting to avoid the same mistake of many of our peers, Ted Murphy and I set out on a seemingly impossible mission: traveling for two weeks straight with the goal of meeting with as many IZEA clients, partners, creators, and investors as our team could schedule each day. More than anything, we wanted all of these important audiences to feel the same excitement that we do about IZEA; to let them know that they matter to us, and that above all, we appreciate them.
The result: our “Summer of Customer Love” tour was born.
In the course of fourteen hectic days, Ted and I spent time with literally hundreds of people – talking about IZEA, the Sponsored Social industry, and what it all means for today’s brands. But most of the time we listened. By doing so, we learned more from these audiences than we could have ever shared with them by doing all the talking.
Thanks to the strong response, most days involved an early-morning breakfast, followed with four or five additional meetings (sometimes over coffee, at someone’s office, or even poolside!), and then end-of-day touch-base meetings with the IZEA Home Office before hopping a flight to travel to the next destination on our tour. It was an exhausting, yet exhilarating, two weeks!
What was most rewarding for us was receiving the “love” back in reciprocation. We heard stories from Creators about income from Sponsored Social literally changing their lives. Brands shared the multiple, downstream positive effects from their campaigns that exceeded their expectations. Agencies named specific IZEA team members that made their experience working with us memorable for all the right reasons. Investors were excited about the trajectory of the business and the realized shift in both marketer and consumer behaviors.
In the end, “The Summer of Customer Love” tour couldn’t have been more successful. However, my biggest takeaway is that these investments of time and energy cannot be a one-time, special event. They need to be woven into the culture of all businesses – particularly ones like ours going through extraordinary growth and evolution.
So, to my fellow executives at other companies who say it takes too much time or that it costs too much money to be in front of your customers as frequently as possible, you’re dead wrong. The investment is priceless and the return limitless.
About the Author: As Chief Operating Officer and Director, Ryan Schram provides organizational and operations leadership for IZEA, servicing the needs of its team members, brand marketing clients and social influencers across the globe.
