Is the Better World Club Really Better?

by Rhona Mahony. The Better World Club (BW) is a new, do-gooder auto club. One co-founder, Mitch Rofsky, worked long ago for Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen. The other, Todd Silverman, started a big, successful travel agency. They believe in “socially responsible” business. They are the “eco-friendly” seller of towing assistance, travel advice, and insurance.

All I want from an auto club, though, is the telephone number of the nearest tow-truck operator when my car breaks down far from home. Soon, it seems to me, I won’t need to pay an auto club anything for that number. With a smart phone, and wider cell phone coverage, I’ll be able to get it from the Web even when I’m stuck in a lonely, Mojave Desert breakdown lane, watching the tumbleweed roll past the vultures sitting closer and closer ’round my dented Volvo station wagon….

I proposed, then, in an email to the Better World Club that they give away the phone numbers of their tow truck operators and networks of operators. Look ahead! Panache! Alas, I was disappointed.

[Me] I wonder if you could list for me the telephone numbers of the networks of towing companies in the U.S. that your dispatchers call when a member needs to have her vehicle towed? I do not want to buy towing insurance. I would, though, like to know a towing company’s telephone number to call, one for each region of the country. I would also like to publish these telephone numbers on my new blog. There may be other people who want only this information, and not towing insurance.
Thanks!

Chris Merkel, BW’s Senior Sales and Service Representative, answered:

[Chris] Unfortunately, that is information that we won’t be able to provide.
Please let us know if you have any other questions

I like to be helpful:

[Me] Why not? Does a contract forbid you from telling other people
the phone numbers?
So many people would benefit by knowing whom to call when they
need to be towed.

Did Chris get annoyed?

[Chris] The costs of establishing and maintaining a network of service providers and of running a call center demand that the service only be available at some cost to the user.

Chris doesn’t realize that soon both the cost of, and the income from, his nifty call center will melt away. Slightly obscure information is no longer valuable property. Its obscurity is melting away. People will pay for financial services, such as insurance. That’s a business that can make the world better.

Better, not Smarter

Silverman and Rofsky aim to take away from the American Automobile Association (AAA) customers who dislike the AAA’s record of lobbying for more paved roads, fewer bike lanes, less restriction on air pollution, more cars, more drivers, and, thus, more AAA members. BW says it charges customers less than AAA for insurance against towing charges. It also gives one percent of its revenue to environmental groups. Customers can sign up for frequent Action Alerts, exhortations to write their U.S. Senators to cap carbon output or save the manatees, just like the ones the Sierra Club sends out.

How much of the green sheen is heartfelt and how much is advertising? I can’t tell. Is BW better than AAA? Yes. I conclude, though, that it might not be smarter about what business looks like in a world where we all can get and share gobs of information.