Consumers

Blah, blah, blah.. is how most corporate responsibility sounds to your customers. The first generation of CSR has concentrated on tools of reporting, benchmarking and countless self-congratulatory awards that are frankly insular and distant from the lives of ordinary consumers.

Our research in Wales, by the Welsh Consumer Council, for example, shows that at least seven in ten (70%) consumers in Wales do not understand what 'sustainable development' means. One in twenty (5%) believes that it is a construction term, and nearly one in five (18%) believes it is an economic term. Around 6-8% of people get it right.

This is not a permission slip for business to walk away from the challenge of sustainable development. The truth is that while most do not understand the language of corporate responsibility, pretty much all consumers do understand fairness and honesty.

The starting point has to be what consumers expect of the businesses they deal with. Their expectations are on the rise. But ordinary shoppers do not want to grapple with the complexity of all concerns - from human rights, waste and energy use through to disability concerns. All too often, they want large companies to manage this for them, so they don't have to.

Assurance for consumers, whether through brand, product information or simply reputation, is therefore about not getting things wrong as much as getting them visibly right. Like a central heating system, we notice things most when they go wrong.

The truth is that CSR has rarely been about consumers, because it was always assumed that customer service was core to the business, whereas responsibility is what you add. This has been a mistake. Any more than your investors, if you can't take your customers with you in the investment you make in CSR, you will not be around for long.

So how do you do it differently? As one way to answer this, the National Consumer Council has launched a connected programme of four initiatives relevant to the CSR community.

1. CONSUMER ACTION
   Working with the Sustainable Development Commission, our round-table report. I will if you will was launched in early May. This looks at success stories of mainstreaming responsible initiatives with consumers and who can do what now to widen these.
   
2. CONSUMER SERVICE
   An 18-month programme of research in the new report The Stupid Company at NCC has uncovered an array of shoddy and insensitive practices by witnesses in relation to consumers - and the best practice that can get it right.
   
3. CONSUMER ASSURANCE
   Working with AccountAbility, we are exploring what works for consumers in relation to assurance on corporate responsibility. The aim is to produce practical guidelines later this year.
   
4. CONSUMER INNOVATION
   Led by former Financial Times writer Charles Leadbeater, NCC's recent report User Innovation looks at case studies of companies that have been successful in building more open relationships with their customers in order to reshape products and services. The field of corporate responsibility is developing in many ways that are welcome to many consumers. But the complexity of issues and expectations has led to a complexity of approach, far removed from the world of your customers.
   

With consumer concerns high around marketing to children, diet and obesity, privacy and rip-off charges, there is no better time for CSR professionals to find the right way to integrate the other C - the consumer. And if you don't do it first, then your competitors will.

More info

www.ncc.org.uk
www.sd-commission.org.uk
www.accountability.org.uk