Monday, December 18, 2006

American Business - Why do we Buy Overseas?

Two recent experiences show me exactly how lame online customer support really is.

In November, I tried to ship a package with a large shipping company that uses brown trucks. I don't have a printer, so I asked them some questions about it. They replied wanting to know the tracking number for the shipment with which I was having problems. I wrote back explaining that I didn't ship the package with them because of the problem. I had to ship it with a different company. They wrote back asking for the tracking number. This exchange went on three times before I told them, "This is fun! It's amazing to see how little you actually pay attention to your customers."

Last night, I went to an American website that offers free television listings looking for HDTV information (yippee!) I found that they had one of the PBS HDTV stations listed as 9.2 when it should be 8.2. I also noticed that they only had one HDTV channel for channel 14 when, in reality, there are 5. I wrote to tell them about this, saying, "I am in Houston, Texas, using rabbit-ears to pick up broadcast TV and my zip code is...". They wrote back asking for my city, state, zip code and which cable system I'm using.

Yeah, it's funny to tell the stories, but it's really sad. These are both American companies. And American companies wonder why they're failing. It's because their customer service sucks. In the first case, I went with a German company that uses yellow trucks - asking a question on-line and receiving an answer in a couple of hours rather than days. In the second case, I'm just going to keep flipping through the channels to find out what's on.

At the UN, Nikita Kruschev once said to the American delegate, "We will bury you without firing a shot." American companies have shipped our (read: my) jobs overseas. American companies have a gut-feeling that Americans will buy American because it's American, even if it's expensive and of poor quality! American companies treat their customers as if we were an interruption to their business, rather than the reason for it.

It's time for them to wake up. I, for one, am no longer putting my money into expensive, shabby products and services just because they bear a tag that reads "Made in USA". I will buy from the company that offers decent products at a reasonable price. Heck, shipping the package via the German company was actually $4 less than brown. And, they got it there in two days, where brown said it would be 7-14.

Folks, don't let the businesses dictate to you how you will spend your dollar. It's your dollar. Take it to the company that treats you right. Bear in mind, however, that eventually that dollar will begin to be called Ruble or Mark or Won...

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