War Unto Bankruptcy

Article = none , personal opinion

What happenned to "lets make a good product at a good price " ? When did we lose sight of that , and the emphasis of business shifted to "kill the competition , then when we're a monopoly triple our prices"

I ask because of a recent event at my work. I take calls for a cell phone company , and we have an ... interesting policy. If a person is a bad credit risk , or they're obnoxious and call a lot and are always asking for insane things , we are to gently edge them out the door and foist them off on our compitition. Other customers we bend over backwards to keep.

The idea is that you stick the competition with the bad customers while you keep the good ones, thus poisoning the well and , well , sinking them.

The more interesting point is that I've seen this policy twice now. Once for internet , where I used to work , now for cell phones. It seems to be an industry wide tactic.

Personally , I think these guys are idiots, and there really arn't very many bad customers. There are instead "deceived" customers that you tricked into your business but really didn't want it , never used it , couldn't afford it ,e tc etc.

This is a text message I received on my phone. Keep in mind I never sent a message to these people and have no idea who they are.

"Got your iPhone ! Bought and paid for ...$700 in your hands...should be here by end of week or early next week at the latest !"

Obviously the idea is I reply to the text message and ask what the heck are you babbling about , and then I get stuck with a fast talking salesman trying to sell me a 700$ iPhone.

When did deciete and trickery become standard sales tactics ? No wonder you have "bad customers" if this is how they became your customer in the first place.

I had a job long long a go , phoneing people up and trying to sell them carpet cleaning. I only had it for four hours and then I quit, but it was very interesting. There was a script they put in front of you, on it it had all the usual responses a customer might give when turning you down , and how you would answer them.As far as the script went , the customer would have to be an unreasonable and stupid idiot to turn down your offer, that part came across pretty clearly even if it wasn't explicitly stated. And if you fell for it , even if you didn't need it , it was considered your fault for being stupid enough to fall for our sales tricks.

Sympatico still takes the cake if you ask me , for just firing off a cable modem at you and then when you ask "what the heck is this ?" you get a salesman on the line and a big long fight.

These people are prepared for you , they have all their tricks lined up, all their lies ready to go, and lots of practice dealing with "difficult sales".

It seems the day of producing an honest product at an honest price are over. Now it's how much can I rip you for.