An American telecommunications company is encouraging its customers to become more active on social and environmental issues by including information on its invoices about campaigns that it supports.
Working Assets, a privately owned San Francisco-based business, devotes the front page of its bills to two different social and environmental issues every month and urges its 400,000 customers to write to politicians about them. It offers to send protest emails on their behalf, using their names.
A recent campaign against drilling rights in the Arctic region generated 144,000 such messages, while opposition to the invasion of Iraq was supported by 5000 customers.
The company also embarks on corporate actions against other companies, and persuaded 10,000 customers to lobby mail order clothing company LL Bean to use recycled paper in the millions of catalogues it sends out annually.
Tiana Wimmer, marketing vice-president, claimed the approach had generated exceptional ‘affiliation and loyalty’ among customers in a sector where it was hard to differentiate between companies on price and quality. She said 41 per cent of customers have been with the company for more than five years, and 19,000 customers have said they are happy for the company to send lobbying emails on their behalf without first informing them of the campaign’s nature. ‘That shows great trust in us,’ she claimed.
The 18-year-old company has donated $38million (£20m) since its foundation to campaigning groups. Much of this has been raised because half its customers have agreed to round up their bills and donate the difference.