It's good to be liked

Oct 15 2009 by David Haywood-Smith, The Journal

ON VALENTINE’S Day 2008, I was inspired with an idea for a website. It was called LovelyCompanies. com, and the idea was to document some of the ‘lovely’ things that companies do. I wanted to inspire other companies to try harder.

It would be easy to set up, regular writing would be good for me and I thought I might even learn a thing or two along the way. Now, 100 posts and 10,000 page views later, I’d like to share a couple of stories.

The first thing to note is that companies have many different reasons for ‘good’ behaviour. For some it’s an effective marketing hook. For others, it is a differentiator that helps attract the best staff.

One of the most popular posts so far has been about Google. For some years now, Google has been hoovering up many of the best software engineers in the world. There’s plenty of competition for this talent, but Google has a few ‘lovely’ tricks up its sleeve.

As well as free lunches and massages, a further perk of working at Google is something called ‘innovation time off’. Googlers can spend 20% of their time working on whatever they choose. Trusting staff to be productive like this has actually resulted in some of Google’s most successful products, including Gmail – the email service now used by 146 million people worldwide.

Another favourite company on LovelyCompanies.com is smoothie-maker Innocent Drinks. Innocent has become renowned for its witty, light-hearted packaging. Funny stories can be found on the backs of cartons and the company’s contact details include the address of their HQ – Fruit Towers.

Innocent staff are also keen bloggers and engage with customers on the popular microblogging platform Twitter. This grassroots engagement means customers and potential customers can engage in conversation with the brand in a very open way.

The internet has certainly helped companies who value openness, honesty, integrity and trust. And a new online service created by 17-year-old, Hexham-based software developer Sam Bell aims to put companies that embrace these values ahead of the competition.

Testify (http://testifyapp.com/) lets you easily collect written testimonials from your clients. You can then use these testimonials as part of your pitch for new contracts. The service may also help to highlight any issues that need to be addressed.

There are many reasons why companies should make an effort to do good. Most obvious among these is the positive impact it can have on the bottom line. So I suggest you start making your own company lovely.

David Haywood-Smith is founder of Wishli.st and LovelyCompanies.com