CUSTOMER STORIES : SHOWCASE YOUR IMPACT IN THE REAL WORLD
Erica Keswin wrote a Harvard Business Review article titled ‘Use Stories from Customers to Highlight Your Company's Purpose’. One such story is of a loyal customer, recently recovering from cancer, who visited her favourite Sweetgreen location in Washington, DC. (Sweetgreen is a fast-casual healthy food chain restaurant.) The team member behind the register recognised her and mentioned that he hadn't seen her in a while. He told her she looked great, remembered her favourite salad order, and gave it to her on the house. The woman was so moved by this kindness that she wrote Sweetgreen a letter telling them how much this personalised attention meant to her. This story made the rounds through the Sweetgreen community, strengthening the company's core values and empowering team members to live them.
As Sweetgreen co-founder Nate Ru states in the article, ‘Stories are the way humans exchange concepts and ideas. We want to create intimacy as we scale, and stories are the key, [so] we empower everyone to collect, on a day-to-day and weekly basis, stories of people living core values.’
Sharing stories about what your customers have experienced will strengthen your brand and amplify your impact.
Let's look at some more customer stories to unpack this in more detail.
Sweeten the deal
As the previous chapter shows, personal stories of employees acting in accordance with your company values are powerful ways to communicate ...
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