British Gas: not the brightest bulbs in the box

Those nice chaps at British Gas mailed me 4 energy efficient light bulbs this week. What a sweet and responsible bunch they are.

Well, that’s the reaction I’m guessing they were hoping for. Sadly, I suspect the money they save me just might be offset by their July announcement of a record 35% increase in my gas bill!

What were they thinking? That a few free light bulbs would soften the blow?

This is precisely the kind of CR tokenism that really pisses me off. If you want to convince me you’re a responsible business, don’t send me light bulbs, give me confidence that you’re treating me fairly as a customer.

Right now, that means offering a bit of transparency around your strategy (past, present and future) for protecting me against the effects of rising wholesale prices – and inspiring confidence that such a massive increase is actually justifiable.

In a recent letter inviting me to fix my prices until 2011, British Gas does a great job of explaining how wholesale prices for oil and gas have increased by over 60% over the last six months.

What it doesn’t do, however, is give me any inkling as to how they’ve sought to manage the situation, nor as to their long-term plans for developing and sustaining a more cost efficient supply.

Without that, all I can see is that they’ve announced an unprecedented price rise in a month that actually saw oil prices fall by 16%. Rightly or wrongly, that just fuels the perception that it’s all one-way traffic and it’s only ever increases that get passed on to customers.

There may be quite legitimate reasons for the increase, but I’ll never know because rather than engaging openly with customers, British Gas seems to think it can demonstrate responsibility by bunging us a pointless freebie.

No doubt some bright spark in the marketing department thought this would be a great way to project a caring image and encourage customer loyalty through a difficult period for energy companies.

For me, though, it’s a clear signal that they just don’t get CR and a bloody good reason to look elsewhere for my gas and electricity.

Wrapit’s directors can’t blame the credit crunch

Wedding list company, Wrapit, finally went into administration yesterday, leaving a good friend of mine with little hope of receiving her gifts.

Unsurprisingly, she’s none too chuffed with the whole state of affairs and neither am I, as I spend the morning trying to get through to the administration helpline to obtain a refund.

Wrapit’s managing director, Peter Gelardi, would have us believe that its evil bank, HSBC, is the sole cause of its demise. In an astonishing email to all Wrapit’s customers, he slams the bank for its decision in May to retain income from purchases made by credit and Visa Debit cards which, he claims, has crippled the company’s cash position and scuppered any potential rescue deal.

Not only that, the email publishes the names and email addresses of individual HSBC staff involved in the decision and (at least tacitly) encourages disgruntled Wrapit customers to round on them to vent their anger and frustration.

Whatever the circumstances, that’s a deeply unethical move in my book – even more so, since Gelardi’s account is patently ridiculously one-sided…

Far from being the innocent victim of the credit crunch and a change in the bank’s policies regarding chargeback risks, it’s clear from the most basic investigation that Wrapit has had serious problems for some time.

The BBC’s coverage of the story cites supplier, Stephen MacGraw, who’d had to resort to legal action to recover five figure debts for goods it supplied to Wrapit last year. And the web is abound with stories of couples who’d had major complaints with the company long before May.

There’s even a Facebook group (Wrapit’s wedding list service – worst customer service ever?) with nearly 700 members, one of whom took final delivery of her gifts in April, six months after her wedding.

Maybe I’m being uncharitable, but I can’t help feeling it takes a special kind of mismanagement to arrive in such a position. You’re charging retail prices, without having many of the retail overheads; you’re not ordering anything until you know you’ve sold it; and your customers’ money is in the bank long before you actually fulfil the order. That’s an outstanding cashflow proposition in anyone’s book.

Sorry, Peter. HSBC’s move may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but if you want to blame someone for Wrapit going bust, I suggest you start by looking in the mirror.

Authenticity: it’s the little things that matter

As some of you will know from a previous post, I’m a big fan of comedian and regular Now Show contributor, Marcus Brigstocke. It was therefore with a great sense of anticipation that I took delivery of his first live stand-up DVD, Planet Corduroy, this week.

I’m pleased to say it didn’t disappoint. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed even before I’d viewed any of the material…

The DVD was packaged in a way I haven’t seen before - an exclusively cardboard design with absolutely no plastic parts, 100% biodegradable, with the DVD simply resting on a little cardboard insert.

Why do I bother to bring this up? It just struck me as a great example of how even the smallest details can have a tremendous impact on people’s perceptions.

Would the material have been any less funny had the DVD been packaged in the conventional way? Of course not.

But when his routine hits the topic of global warming, the fact that it isn’t (as David Taylor might say) adds some extra “sizzle” to the already excellent “sausage”. Whether or not you agree with his politics, you can’t doubt the authenticity of his ire, and that’s a key ingredient of the Brigstocke ”brand”.

Of course, authenticity - trustworthiness, genuineness, undisputed credibility - is key to any successful brand. What’s interesting to me is the thought that literally everything you do, however small, can have the power to enhance or erode it.

Corporate Responsibility matters (redux)

The stats tell me that CR Matters passed 1,000 page views whilst I was away - probably not that impressive in the grand scheme of things, but a landmark nevertheless.

It’s also a decent excuse for a recap and an attempt to offer some sort of digest of key points so far from a thinking p.o.v.

So I asked myself the question: if someone could take away no more than 5 ideas or insights from this blog, what would I want them to be? And here’s what I came up with…

1. The “CR continuum” model
The simplest illustration of my views on the evolution of CR strategy and practice, and its potential as a lasting source of brand and competitive advantage. The key point? Anything less than Level 4 on the Continuum, and CR is destined to become a hygiene factor.

Some relevant posts:
Where do you sit on the CR continuum?
Can CSR survive a recession?
Learning from the UK retail sector

2. CR without HR is just PR
A catchy soundbite perhaps, but one that encapsulates some critical points - not least that a credible commitment to CR begins by addressing the issues closest to home - i.e. those that directly impact employees, customers and suppliers.

Some relevant posts:
CR without HR is just PR
A short treatise on the language of diversity

3. CR 1.0 is dead. Long live CR 2.0!
Want to know what makes a genuine claim to market leadership in CR terms? Companies, such as Interface, have signalled a major evolution in CR strategy and practice - from tool to enhance corporate reputation, to key driver of innovation and value creation.

Some relevant posts:
A fundamental question of leadership
Looking for inspiration? Come and meet Ray Anderson

4. Materiality is king
Simply chucking money at good causes doesn’t cut it with a sceptical public. A credible commitment to CR requires a business’ efforts to be “material” - i.e. focused on issues directly relevant to, and most impacted by, its strategy and operations.

Some relevant posts:
How do you eat an elephant?
It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it

5. The first law of CR communications: do then say!
If you want to avoid accusations of greenwashing, don’t tell people what you plan to do, engage them with stories of what you’ve actually done - illustrated by meaningful proof-points, and wrapped up in a compelling narrative as to why that’s relevant and important to your stakeholders.

Some relevant posts:
How do you eat an elephant?
Where do you sit on the CR continuum?
Whatever you do, don’t do a Heather!

If you’re new to the blog, I hope this provides a handy, quick reference guide and encourages you join in the conversations on previous posts.

Regular readers, I’d be interested to know if your top 5 would be any different, or if you’ve got any of your own insights you’d like to share. Answers on a postcard to the usual address please…

Something for the weekend (and beyond)

I’m off on hols for the next couple of weeks, hoping to celebrate my beautiful baby girl’s first birthday on an equally beautiful French summer’s day.

Not that I expect you to be suffering from withdrawal symptoms or anything, but if you’re in desperate need of an interesting CR fix in the meantime, you could do a lot worse than visit www.ted.com.

It’s an absolutely amazing site, built on an amazing concept. Once a year, some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are gathered in the same place and given 18 minutes to give the talk of their lives - all captured on video and available to download directly into your iTunes library.

There’s a whole thread on sustainability, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Amory Lovins and Janine Benyus, and it really brings home the message that economic progress and the preservation of the planet needn’t be mutually exclusive.

My personal favourite? A thought-provoking and at times very amusing talk by Bill McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle - the book that, along with Jonathon Porritt’s Capitalism as if the World Matters, first got me interested in thinking more deeply about CR.

Check it out. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.