Big Companies Are Working Hard to Lose Your Business

You can't express the frustration that many of us experience when dealing with the big companies like DTE Energy, Sprint, Comcast, Wal-Mart or any other businesses that are too big for their own good. The customers are treated as though they are another commodity and not as an individual with self-worth. Yet despite the poor treatment we seem to keep purchasing our products from the same place no matter how long it takes to get our issues resolved. We, the customer, are at fault for much of what we experience.

As companies get larger the individual worker becomes less invested in each individual person. The worker sees each new customer as a burden to their jobs. For them the goal is to have the least amount of work and the highest pay they can. Therefore, they will service the customer enough to keep their jobs but will rarely go out of their way. Therefore the customer feels as though they are often ignored, treated rudely and taken for granted.

The second problem with big companies is that the individual worker receives little to no benefit for doing a superb job. They do not receive higher compensation and the profits from each sale because it does not go into their bank account. The motivation levels are lacking. A small business owner will jump through hoops for their customers if they will sell more products.

The third problem with large companies is that the processes are really designed to get the most profit and not to service the customer. Like the worker the company only wants to service the customer well enough to keep them buying. If they had to spend a little extra on servicing the customer then customer service would be unprofitable in the short-run. Therefore asking something that would be completely normal in a small business would not be accommodated in a large business.

The fourth problem with customer service is that the skill levels of the workers are at rock bottom. Most of these people choose to work at large retail chains because they are working while they go to school or can't get a job anywhere else. They don't often have the language skills, the patience or the business sense to make the customer happy. They don't know that you can say no by giving choices.

We the consumer do have a choice when it is available. Unfortunately in many cases there is no competition for alternative services (i.e. only one energy company or internet provider in the area) and we are stuck with the service. In retail we usually have lots of choices and letting our feet do the complaining is not a bad choice. The problem is that many of us just take the poor service, buy our product and come back next week. If you are stuck with a large company due to lack of competition make sure you get the customer service representatives name and talk to their supervisor. The supervisor has much more interest in how happy their customers are.