Business is a marvelous human invention, a fundamentally win-win construct that takes competition and turns it into value. I need something, I find (usually) two or more companies that sell it, build it, support it or whatever. I make a decision, the seller gets a few bucks and I get something worth at least those few bucks, and to me often much more.
Competition keeps us on our toes. It helps us to decide what goods and services to offer. It improves quality and lowers price. Don't like what a given supplier has to offer? Dump 'em. There's someone else out there.
Perhaps, however, I should add "in theory" to the above. Because increasingly I've been having more problems with suppliers than I can relate in the 500 words I get each month. And I'm often finding that their competitors are all flakes as well. A brief example might illustrate.
I decided to buy two new cell phones. It was easy to pick both the service plans and the phones themselves. In and out of the store in five minutes. I didn't need the phones for two weeks, so the salesperson said she'd hold them for me-just call the day before you pick them up, she told me.
So, I call the day before. First, the phone rings five times or so, and then it's off to listening carefully, because the menu has changed. I shortly find out that's it's option 4 I need, and after a press of that key, the phone rings at least 40 times. Finally someone (who, to be fair, was at the very least friendly) picks up. No, my sales rep is not there. Can I leave a message in voicemail? No-they don't have voicemail. Huh? Let me get this straight: a major cellular company that doesn't have voice mail in a sales office? Could the rep call me back, then? Sure thing.
She does call back, but seems to have no memory of my ever having been in to place the order. She's not sure if the phones are in stock, despite offering to put a couple aside when I was in the first time. I must have the phones the next day, and I'm wasting an hour solving a problem that never should have occurred.
I could tell you more-about my cable modem, which mysteriously stopped working (and the calls and letters to customer service that have gone ignored), and many other examples of how service is just plain bad. It doesn't matter how good the products are if customers can't buy them, get questions answered and otherwise get support. We're wasting our time in engineering if the people in the front office drop the ball.
C'mon, guys, it's not that hard.
Craig J. Mathias is an analyst with the Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.).
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