A greater good thing

Yelp recently announced it would be including a restaurant’s health inspection score on its listings. This information was always public but users had to go through a government website to track down scores. Customers could find the scores if they spent a few minutes on the Internet, but nobody has time for that. Now it’s front and center on their screens.

Luther Lowe, director of public policy at Yelp, called the decision “a greater good thing,” as the company does not profit from providing health inspection scores.

It got me thinking about business motivations. When is the last time we implemented any policies in our marine businesses with the simple explanation of “because it’s a good thing to do?”

Certainly Yelp is gaining good PR from this decision, but the only other effect of including health inspection scores is that customers can find out a restaurant’s health status quicker than they would have before. And ultimately, a reputation for doing good things for customers just for the sake of doing them is not a bad thing in the world of business.

I would challenge marine businesses to look at their own businesses and find one thing they can implement, big or small, this boating season that does nothing for them other than doing good by the customer.

Don’t make a big PR moment out of it – do it for the sake of doing it and putting a smile on your customers’ faces, showing them that you care about more than making a profit: you also care about making their boating experiences better. Their recommendations to friends and family will act as good PR for you.

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One Comment

  1. We are doing exactly what you suggest with our new PowerBoat Guide blog. We have nothing to gain for all the work except the satisfaction of providing unique content. Plus it’s fun to produce.

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