[LINK] Link Survival

[Rick Welykochy]

Roger Clarke wrote:

> (In a similar vein:  a financial institution called me this morning, 
> asking if I was satisfied with their service.  I said 'well, it's 
> working *now*, but there were about 5 things that went wrong when I 
> joined up 9 months ago'.  He smiled, said 'well if anything goes wrong, 
> just call us', took no notes, and hung up.  Are consumers *really* 
> impressed with vacuous courtesy calls like that?  They lost all chance 
> of ever getting any more business than the one mortgage I've already 
> taken out with them).
> 
> It's very poor that service to existing customers is so low a priority.

And yet the reason many of these organisations give for requesting
and saving your personal and marketing data is "to provide a better
consumer support" or some such nonsense. Yeah, go on, pull the other one.

<rant>

Anyone remember the days before spin? Before economic rationalisation?

(*) I used to be able to talk to a human operator within three rings,
     and be put through to the relevant employee in an organisation
     all in under 30 seconds; this was before "modernisation" and
     rationalisation

(*) Tech support and product longevity used to be paramount in grabbing
     and keeping happy customers; this approach has been replaced by
     user pays (for companies faults! see Microsoft for example) for
     many support services and deliberate (planned) obsolescence
     for many products. Do fridges last 50 years like they used to?
     How about a laptop? Lukcy if you get two years out of it.

(*) Little add-ons and product/service extras used to be covered by
     organisations. Such niceties are long gone and we now pay all
     costs that can possibly be externalised. I resent paying the
     running costs for businesses such a banks and utilities. Why
     should I pay their accounting fees, etc.etc?

The sad thing is it only takes a generation or two to remove all
expectations of quality services and customer support from the
population. Twenty-somethings today don't bat an eye at being treated
like dirt in the marketplace, or paying through through the nose
for what used to be included in the price you paid for a product/service.

</rant>


cheers
rickw



-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people
are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.
      -- Bertrand Russell