According to a Washington Post story, everyone from local business to large corporations are feeling the heat from disgruntled customers who spread the word about they’re dissatisfaction through the Internet.
In other words: You mess with me, I’ll make sure the world knows about it seems to be the attitude that pays off when it comes to dealing with a lot of corporations. Or at least that’s what many of us choose to believe. It may or may not be true, but an increasing sense of rage/outrage/whatever in our culture these days drives us to more and more online “rants,” whether they are accurate rants or useful rants or not.
I think this happens because many of today’s large businesses have gotten far away from those old days of “the customer’s always right” marketing. (If there ever really were such old days in the first place.) Maybe it does take the promise of public shaming through the use of tools like Facebook, Twitter, blogging and webcams to get their attention and to put the word out to potentially thousands of consumers. Maybe we do indeed need sometimes to say that some corporate guys are pretty cutthroat and ready to do you evil just to save their bottom line(s).
Or, maybe the Internet, email, blogging, and all those tools are being misused by folks who have a grudge and an attitude. It’s no big surprise that mean-spirited, stupid people know how to take advantage of technology just as us good guys do. (Note: We ALL consider ourselves to be “the good guys” when it comes to expressing online rage or outrage, don’t we? Really?)
But don’t let dissatisfaction over bad customer service lead you to online actions you’ll regret. If you’ve been around this site much, you’ve seen clear evidence that your friendly old newspaper reading guy here had pulled his share of dumb rants. I honestly try to make clear that the rants you read here are mine, i.e., just my opinions. You’re perfectly free to agree or disagree. As time goes by, I hope you’ll leave your own comments when you agree or disagree with something I’ve yammered on about. Please.
So caution and good sense ought to play a role in your online support and your online opposition, whether we’re talking politics, economics, or religion — and everything in between. At the same time, once you’ve found a fact and/or formed an opinion (hopefully in that order), don’t hold back when some scoundrel needs a good public whack about the head and shoulders to warn potential victims about his greedy ways.
I hope you’ll hang around awhile and read. And I invite you to come back often. I’ve have an extremely simple publication policy here: I write and post a new article whenever and about whatever strikes me strongly. I try hard to encourage and share any comments my visitors have. Legitimate comments, that is. There are some pretty “spammy” birds out there who are constantly trying to build nests in every website. I make an effort to delete such stuff.
As for the rest of it — pick up a genuine, old-fashioned newspaper when you can find one; visit here and your other favorite news and views sites when you can’t. Read around these parts, then let us know what you think. Please!
Aw, heck, the bottom line? What do I know. I’m just a guy who reads the papers.
I’m one who has no problems whatsoever telling the good, the great, the bad, and the ugly on my blog.
I’ve recently posted about Brake World in Lakeland, FL – my daughter showed up there because her brakes were grinding. She asked the man to please replace them, because we’d bought the car used and assumed that the brakes must NEED replacing if they were grinding. He pulled the tires and the brake pads and discovered they were practically new – they just needed adjusting… which he did for free, seeing that she’s a starving college student. He could’ve replaced the brakes (or he could’ve adjusted them and just SAID he replaced them). Instead he did the honest thing and saved her $200.
I’m about to post about North State Telephone, from whom we get wireless (Cingular) service. They gave us 3 LG phones when we obtained a contract from them. None of the phones ever worked properly….they drop calls, get no bars, are statickey, buttons stick, are terrible. One has been replaced, by another phone which now does not work at all. They refuse to replace it, saying WE damaged it. Another has been out for repair for weeks. I met with an outrageously rude, smiling supervisor yesterday at a north state office. She treated me so badly, I availed myself of the demo High Speed Internet terminal there in their office and filed complaints with the BBB, FTC, and FCC. I either want all three phones replaced, or I want out of my contract.
No reason whatsoever not to use the internet to warn other consumers about the goods and the evils out there.