In our modern digital age, where information is available instantly and technology changes almost daily, it can be challenging to feel a personal connection to many of the products and items that we use each day. Customer service can be a faceless, anonymous destination where the consumer and their helper will never see, know or remember one another. Automated systems can leave customers frustrated and totally discouraged. There are some well-known companies that have become aware of the lack of connection between consumers and themselves, but who are taking steps to change and improve matters. Satellite television provider DirecTV, for example, makes a point of working to establish a relationship with its customers, staff and communities and prove that they are a company that cares.

This company has a strong and long-standing policy of “corporate citizenship”, with initiatives that see profit and product donations to the communities where DirecTV employees live and work. The company also gives to non-profit groups with nationwide causes or efforts.

Currently DirecTV’s initiatives are directed at health, education and disaster relief. The company finds ways to promote healthy lifestyles for its customers, staff and communities through programs such as “Fast Forward to a Cure”, company blood drives and employee gift matching programs.

The also deliver a lot of attention and effort towards improving educational systems, especially in the K-12 years. They have seen some remarkable results with their programs such as “DirecTV Goes to School” and “DirecTV4Schools”.

The company also puts their technologies to work for the support of disaster victims or relief zones. They joined in an effort to provide mobile command centers during the California wildfire outbreak in 2007 and provided emergency shelters with television equipment after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

Their good works are always aimed at improving their communities while increasing awareness of local and national concerns, crises and issues. Using their high profile identity, DirecTV has proven time and again that they look at far more than their healthy bottom line or profit margins.

In addition to paying forward their good fortune and success to the community, DirecTV also recognizes the value of their staff, and continually seeks their input, opinions and acknowledges the role that each person plays in keeping DirecTV as the number one provider of satellite services. They implement many participation, input and feedback channels for their more than seven thousand employees. Through this approach they have been able to hear and understand what their roughly sixteen million customers need and are looking for in the future. One of the company’s primary missions is to be of benefit to the future of the television experience. They do this through their open channels of communication with all levels of staff, and through their award-winning customer service.

For the past seven years, DirecTV has received the highest performance rating in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. This means that they train their installation and sales staff, telephone operators, technical staff and executive officers to acknowledge and understand the value of their customers and themselves.