Opinion: Do actions speak louder than words?

The working from home debate has manifested another interesting wrinkle.

The pioneering enablers of remote work came under fire recently for requesting their employees return to the office. 

Zoom, the business which has become synonymous with our new work reality and whose technology was a lifeline for remote workers during the pandemic. The company experienced a meteoric rise in value due to this corporate behavioural shift has decided its own workers must be present in the office.

The video platform calls its plan a “structured hybrid” policy, which requires employees who live within a 50-mile radius of an office to return two days a week. The two days are determined by each team. Video link, it seems, is not an adequate means for robust collaboration.

Do as I say. Not as I do.

The big boss claims the move is to better understand their customers. “We had to put ourselves into your shoes,” said chief executive Eric Yuan at the company’s annual conference. “By doing this, we have dialled into the challenges you are facing.”

Convenient cover, or cop-out?

While this is a line you’d expect from any self-respecting CEO, it does beg the question - should brands ‘eat their own lunch’? Or in the more vulgar, common phrasing, ‘eat your own dog food?'.

There are many ways to describe the thinking, but essentially, the term applies when a vendor doesn’t use its own products. It's widely accepted that businesses should use the mediums and the tools they’re meant to be an expert in. If you’re not going to use your own solutions, why would anyone else?

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this, either. Years ago, Facebook surprised many when it rolled out an out-of-home billboard campaign across Australia’s major cities. Your Gran’s favourite social network may vacuum up billions of dollars in online ad revenue, but apparently its own marketing budget is best spent offline. 

It makes you wonder why one of the top online advertising powers in the world invests its marketing dollars into outdoor advertising.

They’re not alone, especially in the media space. Google advertises on TV. Hell, Google is the biggest advertiser on Facebook. And it's not unusual to see cross-pollination from one media platform to another. 

Common amongst the media, where eyeballs and attention are the currency, but surely this is different for other industries?

Big tech and the environments that foster it are built on feedback and insights. User testing, A/B testing, feedback loops. All important instruments in enticing the elusive customer to get them paying and keep them paying.

In the world of tech, ‘dogfooding’ means consistently using a product you built, just as a user might, to figure out what works and what needs to be fixed. Coined most recently, in the greatest of ironies, by Facebook vice president, Vishal Shah.

It makes sense. Use the product like a customer and you’ll have the best insight into making it a delight.

The argument is there (and made by Zoom CEO Eric Yuan) that by living the complexities inherent in a normal hybrid or working from home capacity, Zoom’s teams are better placed to improve product quality. The best way to understand your customers is to walk in their shoes. 

Simply using your own product without a feedback loop to the developers or product teams, however, isn’t really serving the stated purpose of improving customer experience.

It’s unclear if Zoom has a robust feedback loop implemented to ensure this new mandate will in fact deliver on the promises of its senior leadership team. 

Will it stop any of us from using Zoom?

Probably not. Just like how trust doesn’t factor into a lot of our purchasing decisions, we’ll go with the brand we find most familiar. The easiest to use. The one which makes each experience a delight.

And if Zoom needs its people commuting a few days a week to achieve that, who are we to begrudge them?

Beau Ushay is a marketing specialist at Virtual Marketing Management. Connect with him on LinkedIn.