Unfortunately, the Trust your clients have in you is not etched in stone. You must continue to earn it, by meeting and exceeding their expectations.
You have a great company, right? Or at least that’s the plan. You pride yourself on service and customer satisfaction, because you know that’s what builds a truly prosperous brand over the long term.
You keep a keen eye on your company’s reliability—and of the reliability of the products you use. You build trust among your clients. That’s Trust—with a capital T. And you consider yourself on the cutting edge of technology and what people want out of it.
So why isn’t your company green? Why aren’t you offering green and energy efficiency services to every client and potential client?
Green Tech is Reliable
Are you hesitating on diving into green and energy-efficient technologies because you consider them unreliable? Not a lot of it is new. Lighting control systems, home control systems, even some “newfangled” energy monitoring systems have been around for years. You wouldn’t hesitate on installing an energy-saving LED TV to an early adopter who loves it for the picture, would you? Then why are you hesitating to sell it as an energy-saving device? Do you believe people aren’t ready for green and energy efficiency?
People are Ready for Green
Here are some quick survey results from sustainability research and marketing firm the Shelton Group, which recently released its Green Living Pulse 2010 report.
- 84 percent of Americans are seeking green products, up from 77 percent last year. And this—as fewer Americans say they believe in global warming!
- Men were somewhat more interested than women in buying or renting an energy-efficient home (67 percent vs. 61 percent).
- Respondents reporting household incomes of $100,000-plus expressed the most interest in energy-efficient homes (70 percent).
- Finally, households with children were also significantly more interested than those without (71 percent vs. 61 percent).
So what, exactly, is still preventing you from selling green and energy efficiency solutions?
Your Clients Expect it of You
If you’re building a truly great company—or aim to build one—your clients will expect you to be green.
Following is an excerpt from a Fast Company blog post, asking why some companies don’t aggressively market their “green” innovations. It’s not so much that companies are afraid of being labeled greenwashers, the post explains:
The fact [is] that consumers expect innovative brands to be green. As such, playing up green credentials might be seen as overstating the obvious.
And this:
According to the 2010 ImagePower Green Brands study, 75% of U.S. consumers say it’s “somewhat or very important to them” that the brands they buy come from green companies. That’s translated into a 500% jump in green product launches between 2007 and 2009.
This is where the Trust comes in. If your clients really Trust you, they will Trust and Expect you to be Green and Energy Efficient (all deserve capital letters). They want to Trust that you will be Green and guide them to the best and most reliable GreenTech and Energy-Efficient technologies.
My colleague Chris Westfall recently posted about this, in “Invisible Green for the Luxe Set.” Chris proposes that “green” should simply be a part of good design—whether that design is for a Ferrari hybrid car, a Ritz-Carlton resort or electronic systems for homes and businesses. Chris cites Ferrari and the Ritz-Carlton as great examples of this. These brands are known and Trusted for their top-notch design and service—so it’s expected that they deliver top-notch green design and service as well.
I have to admit, when I first read Chris’ post, I thought, “That’s great, but Ferrari and the Ritz are probably being green just to hop on the bandwagon and say they are.” And when companies such as these don’t promote their new green products aggressively, I figure they’re afraid of being labeled as greenwashers.
But it made me think to my own status-symbol car, and my expectations of that brand. Until recently I owned an Audi A6 that I bought when still employed at the luxe mag Robb Report. I loved the Audi’s buttery-smooth ride, the heated seats and steering wheel, the all-wheel drive, the Tiptronic transmission. I recently traded it in, however, because even though it still had low mileage, it had become a money pit each time it visited the shop. This, of course, is to be expected of many expensive and semi-expensive European imports. Yet I also expected my favorite car brand to deliver a green and fuel-efficient hybrid-electric vehicle with premier German engineering. And in this, I was sorely disappointed, until Audi announced hybrid offerings in the past year. I’ll still cheer for Audi to do well in with green automotive technologies. But the brand lost much of its luster with me—and with that, much of the Trust I had in Audi design has been lost as well.
You don’t want this to happen to your company. Your clients Trust you to offer better design and service. People want Green and Energy Efficiency. They want it in their cars and in their homes. They Expect the companies they Trust to provide Green and Energy Efficiency. So, really, what’s preventing you from providing GreenTech and further building that all-important Trust?
