We came out with a new slogan. I can honestly say the best part of the rebranding process is that we founders did not come up with it! In fact, in the end, we could not decide which slogan to choose.
Why is this important? Because when we were small, we had unintentionally set a vision and a culture. It was simply who we were and what we thought was important – unaware of the growth ahead and doing business as we saw fit. It was a representation of the culture even then and foresight into the culture that evolved. As the company grew in size, the culture had to keep up – incorporating the viewpoints of those joining myHSA. We place importance on sharing similarities with those we hire to stay in-tune with what we had started to build – evolving the myHSA culture. Altering an underlying culture becomes more difficult as your company grows in size, and maintaining it is the challenge. Especially as a leader if you are trying to change it into something inherently different than what you had in mind.
Even to me, the above paragraph sounds like some HR bullshit or gets a little too warm and fuzzy. So, let’s give examples. My number one lesson from our CEO is that customer service is in his DNA! Sometimes to a fault. You bet your ass if his phone rings in a meeting and it is an advisor – he takes it. It may piss everyone off attending the meeting, but what do you think the advisors think of him?
If he is walking through an airport and he recognizes someone, he HAS to say hi. Even if he is pretty sure that person may not remember him. His wife and I have been in this situation, and even if it is awkward, he cannot help himself. He is always about the clients. Even when he owned a P & C brokerage, it was the same importance of client focus but within a completely different industry. I worked for him then, and he expected high customer service – even if some of us did not want to give it – it was non-negotiable.
So, guess what happens to be an underlying aspect of our culture? Impeccable customer service. We inherently hired for it, we trained on it, and those who succeed in our company are fantastic at it. We have all the complements to prove it.
Another example of this is in the slogan. We have always tried to approach everything we do with simplicity and focus – making an archaic, unchanged industry that much better. We strive to do it with humility and fun – we are not splitting the atom here. Tim and I joke that we created a decent-sized business in a part of the industry most do not care about! No advisor is getting rich off of HSA’s. This is where I think we have and want to continue to shine with simple effective products. This in itself is somewhat of an art, and our employees understand this. They talk to each other and listen to what each other is seeing and hearing. While our savvy designer knows what a plus (+) icon means to users, our customer service staff may point out what many of our older and non-tech-savvy users may not understand – so we find a simple balance. That is perfect!
We let our staff run with this new branding and produced it on-point with our culture and ongoing intentions. It speaks to what and how we started in 2013 and where we want to continue to take myHSA. The best part is it seems we are all rowing the same way. Happy all around!
Steve McEwan
COO and Co-Founder, myHSA