THE FACE OF BUSINESS

By Sam J. Jacobsen

It’s hard to understand the unfriendly face of business. In many situations, the customer treatment borders on contempt. Observe the airline customer service – they rarely answer the phone live, then you go through a recording menu, and the lines are then busy. After repeated recordings, “We are a valued customer”, more pre-meditated advertising and to calm your temper you are fed recorded music. The companies referred above are in bankruptcy waiting for the government to bail them out. To the contrary, try Southwest Airlines – they answer their phones live within seconds, are very profitable and exploding in national customer growth. Common sense prevails.

Another sad situation is pricing from the mentality of what traffic will bear. This method is widely practiced from hotels, to appliances, vehicles, hospitals and professional services. Even the Federal, State and local Governments have adopted the practice in development projects referred to as impact fees.

These poor practices are customer unfriendly and are unknown to the general public. Like It Is will be exposing these practices to the customers since each dollar purchased, in effect, is a vote of acceptance. Chief Executive Officers beware!