Believe It or Not, Doing the Right Thing for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is Also More Profitable

You’ve seen the stories before. A company goes the extra mile to reduce its environmental impact. A viral video spreads, depicting a frontline employee performing one of those heartwarming go-the-extra-mile services for a client with a specific need. A CEO posts an open letter on social media about how his company is finished with cutting corners and will now do whatever it takes to serve customers in a way that better benefits the greater good. These kinds of things happen all the time. And there’s a common thread that holds them all together: whenever an employee, leader, or company does this, its profits, its stock value, and its performance spontaneously start to climb.

At first glance, it might be easy to assume that these gains are short-term. The company sees a quick spike in profits thanks to this spark of goodwill, but then, a day or two later, the news cycle shifts and everything returns to equilibrium. But this just isn’t so. More and more companies are starting to wake up to the realization that doing the right thing is profitable now while also generating considerable value in the long-term.

Recent polls released by JUST Capital, a nonprofit research organization with a mission to publish reports on the “just behavior” of American companies, suggest that firms demonstrating a commitment to doing the right thing outperform their competitors across the board. The JUST 100 is their list of the most ethically responsible companies in the nation, and their survey data shows that these hundred companies enjoy profits one to four percent higher than the competition in their respective industries. There’s good reason for this boost in performance. According to a survey by Cone Communications, more than nine out of ten people under the age of 35 (or in other words, the demographic with that sweet-spot combination of spending power and an actual desire to spend) are willing to switch brands to one associated with a positive cause.[1]

But that’s only a small part of the picture. The world’s highest market-capped companies are recognizing that doing the right thing now always translates to added value in the near, middle, and distant future, regardless of demographic trends. Companies like Alphabet, Amazon, and Coca-Cola are doing their part to lower their environmental impact not just because of global warming or dwindling resources, but also because the annualized performance of greener companies far outstrips that of the competition. Accenture, Nike, and Nestlé are performing expansive charitable works both because they see a need they can help meet, and also because serving communities enhances a company’s value. In every industry, the most ethical and enlightened organizations outperform their shareholder-focused counterparts by considerable margins, and in every industry, those companies are significantly more valuable now while also enjoying steeper growth trajectories and performance projections.

This, of course, is laudable. When many of the world’s largest companies are starting to show commitment to more diverse hiring practices, promoting women into positions of power, paying their workers a living wage, offering flexible working hours and more paid leave, reducing their carbon footprint and waste output, and donating substantial time and money to charity, it brings hope for a brighter future. There is, however, a large group of people who remain thoroughly underserved, even in this more enlightened corporate world. There are 40 million Deaf and Hard of Hearing people worldwide, and yet the large majority of them still must contend with companies that fail to meet their communication needs.

I recently produced a commercial for Connect Direct, a company whose mission is to eliminate a huge barrier still standing between companies and the millions of Deaf and Hard of Hearing customers they are attempting to serve. The commercial depicts a young couple trying to pay their tab at a restaurant, but the young man’s card is declined. He calls his bank to figure out what is going on, but the operator informs him that his bank doesn’t offer customer service in English, the young man’s native language. His frustration mounts as he waits for an interpreter to join the line. Then, it boils over when the reception on the interpreter’s line is poor, and the call drops, cutting off both the interpreter and the customer service rep. The young man is so confused, embarrassed, and dejected that he winds up sheepishly promising his date that he will pick up the next bill.

As the commercial points out, imagine if this kind of thing happened to you every day. Imagine having to go through a third-party when you’re just trying to get a fast resolution to a frustrating problem that requires customer service. Rather than speaking directly to a representative who can help right away, you have to jump through a series of complicated and time-consuming hoops just to receive the basic level of customer care that most of your Hearing counterparts take for granted. This is the unfortunate reality for millions of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans.

Even today, as companies like Connect Direct work to eliminate this barrier by offering employers the tools to outsource or employ Deaf and Hard of Hearing customer service representatives that can speak to these underserved customers directly and in their native language, these millions-strong communities remain underserved. So, while the rest of the JUST 100 and other ethically conscious companies focus on serving causes of diversity, ethical employment practices, environmental responsibility, and charitable giving, there remains a huge, mostly untapped opportunity to enjoy those same gains by doing the right thing for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities. Partnering with Connect Direct isn’t merely a matter of doing what is right. It isn’t even simply a means of better connecting with the tens of millions of Deaf and Hard of Hearing customers worldwide. It is also a positive, high-profile, publicity-generating means to improve a company’s profits today and its value in the long-term.

www.getconnectdirect.com

[1] https://www.conecomm.com/news-blog/new-cone-communications-research-confirms-millennials-as-americas-most-ardent-csr-supporters