Corporate Social Responsibility Can Enhance Customer Value

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have the potential to enhance customer value in many ways, The Conference Board said in a new report.

The report points out four distinct forms of CSR-related value for customers: the efficiency of a product or service, the aesthetic appreciation of consuming a product, the social status a customer acquires from using a product, and the social or environmental benefit a community can derive from widespread dissemination of a product.

The report offers business leaders 10 recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of CSR activities on customer responses, such as:

-- Prioritize product-related activities over philanthropy and business practices.

-- Ensure coherence of the activities included in a CSR portfolio to build a strong and recognizable “CSR brand.”

-- Ensure consistent, long-term commitment to each activity in the CSR portfolio, especially when not product-related.

-- Make adequate use of marketing to enhance the customer value proposition of CSR activities.

-- Tie CSR to functional and utilitarian products.

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