Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 08-08-2014, 10:05 AM
 
Location: Denver
898 posts, read 935,967 times
Reputation: 865

Advertisements

After many years of being a consumer, I realized some idiosyncrasies that businesses seem to mimic. Some of these idiosyncrasies are downright frustrating to consumers. That's why I think you will find many people who are fed up with businesses and pro-capitalist beliefs.

Businesses who don't stand behind the products or services they sell - I've encountered a lot of businesses that won't stand behind the products or services they sell. For example, once I had my car painted at a Maaco, and within a couple weeks it started rusting. When I took it back, they tried to tell me that it was not guaranteed not to rust. Okay, I understand that being the case after a year or so. But we were talking about a few weeks. They ended up fixing the work, but only after I argued with them about it. Sony also tried responding like this after I purchased a laptop from them. I bought a warranty so that if anything were to go wrong with the unit, they'd do everything in their power to fix it. When I tried to use the warranty recently when my wifi started acting wonky, they tried to fight me on it. Again, it took almost an hour of arguing with the tech support agent to make that a reality though. Why should that be the case?

Once you're locked in, the rules don't seem to apply to them anymore - It seems like only after you get locked into a contract with them that their evil side comes out. I've found this to be the case with my rental property manager most recently. I was treated very poorly by the manager when I recently brought up an issue that her staff was responsible for, and I feel like there's nothing I can do with how I'm treated because I'm locked in the lease. Therefore, they seemingly have full control over the situation while I feel hopeless and abandoned. Why should I feel powerless when we're both committed to the contract?

Terrible customer service (after the fact) - Most of you've probably heard the phone call that took place between a (former) Comcast customer and Comcast CSR by now. The guy was simply trying to cancel his service and the CSR refused to do so for almost an hour. And again, usually this is something that customers aren't aware of until after they signed at the dotted line and are locked into a service. Because before the sale, everybody is really friendly and keen on telling you how great their service is if you buy their product. A lot of times, that ends up being a bunch of BS. Ever waited for more than 30 minutes for a CSR to pick up from one of those 800 numbers they give you? Yeah, same here. I'd feel pretty disgruntled about dealing with specific businesses if something like this happened.

Generally, I feel like this country has very pro-business, anti-consumer sentiments. Also, I feel like if you're not a "producer" of sorts, the cards are generally stacked against you. I think that years of abuse from businesses often make people feel pretty jaded and fed up with their tactics. Additionally, the laws and rules of the land seem to be set in place primarily to protect businesses over consumers. In cases where this is particularly true, it's hard not to feel irritated or discriminated against.

There are still a few good businesses left out there that I've dealt with. But generally, I feel like they are few and far in between. Most companies seem to be more concerned with the bottom line than quality customer service.

Last edited by 4DM1N; 08-08-2014 at 10:32 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-08-2014, 10:56 AM
 
Location: Howard County, Maryland
16,418 posts, read 10,458,871 times
Reputation: 36255
I feel your frustration. Do you have any thoughts on solutions?

I think that the possible solutions really boil down to two different directions: more capitalism, or less. "Less" would mean imposing more and more governmental regulations regarding how companies may conduct their businesses. The other direction would be to head towards a much more laissez-faire capitalism. That is, the government would basically let businesses do whatever they want. In order for this to work, there must be robust competition within the private sector.

By way of example, suppose there were only one airline in the entire country. They could, and probably would, assume a "take it or leave it" approach to their passengers. "Don't like how we do things? Then don't fly" would be their unofficial operating philosophy. There would be demands that the government make them act according to whatever the popular will might be, with the result being laws like the one recently passed that requires airlines to offload their passengers if they're stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours. (IMO, the airlines have no one but themselves to blame for this, as they didn't do nearly enough on their own to address these infrequent, yet high profile issues.)

But now let's go to the opposite (and admittedly far-fetched) extreme and say that every single airport-pair in the entire country is directly linked by several dozen airlines. Those airlines would fight tooth and nail for your business, and do whatever they could to satisfy you. Otherwise, if Airline A gained a reputation for poor service, customers could simply choose to fly Airlines B through Z instead, and Airline A would go out of business. As well, customers could choose what operating model best suits them. Like to pay once and have all services included? Prefer to pay a-la-carte for baggage, meals, etc.? Want lavish meals served by gorgeous flight attendants? Just want to get from A to Z as cheaply as possible? Whatever your niche, there'd be someone to serve it.

By the way, I'm not saying that this scenario is anywhere close to being realistic. I'm simply trying to illustrate the continuum of solutions to the current situation that was the subject of your initial post.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Denver
898 posts, read 935,967 times
Reputation: 865
Quote:
Originally Posted by bus man View Post
I feel your frustration. Do you have any thoughts on solutions?
I think that more competition is always good in remedying problems like this. The smaller, more hungry businesses seem to be more willing to bend over backwards to make things right. Which is ironic, because most people attribute capitalism as being the problem, when in fact we just need more capitalism (as you put it). Sometimes in certain markets, there seems to be huge barriers to entry though.

For example, we only have two formidable ISPs in the local market, and both offer terrible CS. It doesn't seem like any other ISP can make a run out here for whatever reason. I'm still crossing my fingers for Google Fiber. The rental market is out of control here as well. Hence the reason why my property manager thinks it's totally acceptable that she and her staff treats the residents like manure. Fortunately for us, I've heard there is a huge bubble about to explode in terms of pent up real-estate development. So that should ease the rental demand market in the coming months.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Buckeye, AZ
38,936 posts, read 23,807,249 times
Reputation: 14125
Telecommunications are notoriously terrible at customer service. I've heard bad things with cable/internet/phone providers in other areas (to be fair the one by me is actually decent.) In personal experience satellite providers are awful. My parents had Dish Network for about six years with a few problems (Cablevision/Optimum was about the same price for less stations and notorious bad service at the time and that was the only cable option on Long Island at that point) until they said they were moving. The Dish representative turned off the local channels and made it west coast based immediately despite them not in Arizona yet. They lost the New York local channels for about a day.
DirecTV was also good for the first year and a half until they had an issue with the local CBS affiliate in Arizona. Then they had issues with a remote and Direct wouldn't send them a new remote despite buttons clearly not working despite fixes (at best two buttons worked after the Direct fixes.) That took them over several calls and e-mails to finally get a new remote sent. What set them back to the local cable provider, was they then got calls from Direct reps about changing their existing boxes to another model that was "better than what they had" and would save them money. The installer came in and told my parents that the boxes they had were better and if the main box went down, they wouldn't be able to watch the show (something the Direct reps would sell them.) It then took my mother nearly two hours to not renew the contract with them.

Telecommunications in particular shows two of the three noticeable problems with capitalism again.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 12:19 PM
 
2,485 posts, read 2,211,340 times
Reputation: 2140
Hilarious. There could be more complaints about government services. In fact, with the absence of the profit motive and plenty of power, government run services are usually inefficient, outdated, outright rude, etc.

Businesses do have problems, such as when you are locked in a contract. However government run programs are the equivalent of that part when you have locked into a contract.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 01:06 PM
 
Location: Denver
898 posts, read 935,967 times
Reputation: 865
Quote:
Originally Posted by Costaexpress View Post
Hilarious. There could be more complaints about government services. In fact, with the absence of the profit motive and plenty of power, government run services are usually inefficient, outdated, outright rude, etc.

Businesses do have problems, such as when you are locked in a contract. However government run programs are the equivalent of that part when you have locked into a contract.
If I made the claim that government services are far better than private services, you might have yourself a valid point.

Far too often these thread topics get derailed by the them vs. us crowds when it is completely inappropriate. And frankly, I'm gettin' kinda tired of it. Let's keep on track here and address what's in the OP.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 02:17 PM
 
283 posts, read 348,761 times
Reputation: 321
more competition is always good
cable and phone companies have tended to have horse**** customer service bc in many areas they have or had monopolies

however as annoyed as you may be with their garbage cs things like cable and cell phones would not exist they way they do now if it weren't for capitalism

these are pretty remarkable pieces of technology when you think about it

other than that you can always find ****ty cs from some businesses and great cs from others.

do you think the govt would paint your car any better?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-08-2014, 02:26 PM
 
Location: Buckeye, AZ
38,936 posts, read 23,807,249 times
Reputation: 14125
Quote:
Originally Posted by nylonggamer View Post
more competition is always good
cable and phone companies have tended to have horse**** customer service bc in many areas they have or had monopolies

however as annoyed as you may be with their garbage cs things like cable and cell phones would not exist they way they do now if it weren't for capitalism

these are pretty remarkable pieces of technology when you think about it

other than that you can always find ****ty cs from some businesses and great cs from others.

do you think the govt would paint your car any better?
Power and telecommunication (not in the celluar part) are for the most part natural monopolies based on the region. If you wanted cable on Long Island, it was Cablevision or nothing. Where I am in Arizona it's Cox. Up in Flagstaff, it's Sudden Link or Century Link so you have few options. The issue is ones that aren't monopolies (Direct and Dish) have terrible customer service compared to Cox (I never dealt with Sudden Link and Century Link.) The issue is these can't be fixed by competition because they are naturally one provider available. The only way it can be fixed is more regulation (God forbid.)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-09-2014, 07:03 AM
 
4,899 posts, read 6,201,553 times
Reputation: 7472
We think we have choices but in reality we have limited choices when a few corporations own the majority
of products or services. As for the cable discussion, I decided that I was tired of playing games
and getting the run around with these companies - so I cancelled their services. I don't miss it at all.
Some links showing which corporations own what and how much (including control).

The 10 Corporations That Control Almost Everything You Buy | Zero Hedge

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America - Business Insider

Who Owns U.S. Agricultural Land? - Modern Farmer

CorpWatch*:*Monsanto Bullies Small Farmers Over Planting Harvested GMO Seeds
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-09-2014, 08:31 AM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,820,863 times
Reputation: 15839
Quote:
Originally Posted by Costaexpress View Post
Hilarious. There could be more complaints about government services. In fact, with the absence of the profit motive and plenty of power, government run services are usually inefficient, outdated, outright rude, etc.

Businesses do have problems, such as when you are locked in a contract. However government run programs are the equivalent of that part when you have locked into a contract.

In general, I agree. But I thought I'd pass along a pleasant counterpoint.

Anecdotes are not data, of course, but I've had a couple recent interactions with public sector entities (fire department, building department, a state regulatory agency) -- and the thing that strikes me is the employees were intelligent and capable. They are not the types of employees that you would find in the private sector in a customer service capacity - they had more experience and had better judgment. Many were 20+ year armed forces veterans. I entered into the discussions expecting mild incompetence coupled with a mild lack of motivation. What I found instead was a deep desire to do a great job, and that these were very reasonable people who were intelligent & who were seeking solutions.

Of course, I'm not talking about the DMV here, nor am I talking about people who staff the information desk at City Hall but rather professionals in the middle of their careers who are not jaded in the least. I was pleasantly surprised.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top