“Love covers a multitude of sins…”*
When you love a company, you’ll forgive their little mistakes.
I love IKEA:
- I love their relatively inexpensive stuff.
- I love how they suggest doing more things with less space.
- I love the photo of the old Fiat 500 with a living room being transported on its roof.
- I love the fresh, healthy and sometimes tasty food options in their cafeterias.
- I love the style of much of what they sell.
- I love the exotic-ness of the weird Swedish names for their stuff.
Because of my love for IKEA, I’m willing to put up with the things I don’t like:
- I hate how they spell their name in all caps.
- Some of their stuff is poor quality.
- Since their goods are so inexpensive, workers in other parts of the world are not making enough in their factories.
- The maze can be annoying, even though I know the shortcuts.
A very illusive goal for any company is to make it onto someone’s loved companies list. And it’s easy to get off that list. (Hello Chipotle and VW.)
Homework for my marketing friends out there: brainstorm with your team ways your company can get on your customers’ loved companies list.
* 1 Peter 4:8b.
I with you on just about all of this (I’m a recent convert), although I don’t care about the all-caps issue.