Customer communications as a profit centre

I've been thinking for months about how we can transform customer communications into a profit centre.

Since I joined journalist school in 1995 us editorial types have railed against commercial urges from other zones under our paymasters' gaze.

Chiefly because we believed this would eviscerate us of our independence to pursue what was right and just. That once you start talking about money (unless you're a financial journalist), everything honest falls apart.

But the internet eroded that fear. For me, anyway. As everything became open, and increasingly (though not entirely) transparent, we realised that our cog in the machine was in no way threatened by other moving parts.

I've been at peace for years with how commercial and editorial demands and requirements coalesce. I'm way beyond advertorials.

Suppliers and clients recognise, as we have come to understand, that they need to operate ethically, morally, and entirely with their own customers' needs at the centre of all their concentric circles.

Which makes our jobs a heck of a lot easier. No more terse, gruff discussions with our commercial peers. We're kind of all on the same team. We have a mutual understanding of the integrity of fair and balanced reporting.

And it feels good.

Not hating the traditionally revenue-inclined business functions has had positive reverberations on the quality of our work. We've curtseyed at the opportunity to learn in detail about how our own businesses and media outlets work, so in turn we can better understand the mechanics of enterprise that govern those organisations on which we must report.

There are lots of wins from this confluence of interests and alliance of ambitions.

We've all matured through and bonded with this new reality.

Which has rendered journalists as myself very much a hot prospect for the thrusting business that wants to better understand itself, and its customers, and how to strengthen the bonds that join them.

Reflecting on my responsibilities and deliverables, I've been occupying an editor-at-large role in every organisation that's paid me. You've rarely found me anywhere than at the coalface, mithering my customer-facing colleagues for the latest scoop; without a lead from our R&D cousins as to what's bubbling in their cauldron; from the finance team as to the challenges and trends affecting our wider industry; and, of course, the senior leadership team, one hand on the tiller, another on the binoculars.

The editor-at-large represents a new dawn for customer communications. For us recognising our customers are also within, and never without.

For redefining customer communications as a profit centre. Not only enlisting editors-at-large to open everyone's eyes, but open external customer wallets in a way that makes this most crucial of business roles a revenue-generating affiliate with a different badge.

I'll talk the hind legs off anyone who wants to understand more about how we can transform customer communications into a profit centre. But most of all, I'll listen. Because that's what we do. That's what we expect. That's why we do our jobs.