“If you boil it all down it’s about being nice. Taking a likeable approach to what you want to do.” So said Paul Hemingway, head of marketing and communications at Co-operative Insurance, speaking at a Communisis customer event last week, where the topic was” the customer journey”. It’s a journey that’s more complicated and potentially convoluted than ever thanks to the explosion in communication channels. And at the moment nobody really has a definitive map. Paul’s statement struck a chord as I could immediately identify with it in terms of my own brand interactions – some companies it’s my misfortune to deal with seem to have a default setting involving rapacious and self-serving behaviour. Would I be likely to recommend such organisations, or wax lyrical about them on review sites? No. Anyhow, I liked what Paul had to say a lot. Not least because he is also someone who uses print effectively and therefore gains a gold star in my book. By teaming with Communisis’ data folk to create targeted acquisition lists, Paul and his team get solid results from good old direct mail. “We use cold DM and make it pay,” he states. And the Co-op does other clever printy-things as part of the customer journey mentioned above. New customers receive a jolly printed pack that is just saying “hello”, in a nicely-designed, printy fashion.  Not trying to actively sell the punter another service in the style of the rapacious. How refreshing is that? It’s refreshing and it obviously works, judging by the impressive uplift in customer retention in what is obviously a hugely-competitive insurance business. Nice guys don’t always come last.