Re: Tuba Consumerism & Emails


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Posted by rebuttal on February 19, 2004 at 21:46:32:

In Reply to: Tuba Consumerism & Emails posted by Joe Baker on February 19, 2004 at 18:10:31:

1. The customer is (supposed to be) always right. I disagree with this sycophantic, pandering attitude about transactions in general and business in particular. Why? The "customer" is sometimes not in the most informed, best, and expert position to do what it is they need done. Now before you get your panties in a bunch, let's look at it this way. You need a foundation built for a shop you want to construct for your self, you have some framing and roofing and even plumbing and wiring skills, but cannot run a backhoe or lay rebar or pour concrete to save your life. So because someone else is the expert, you hire them. At THAT point, you can either honor their expert experience, and show a little respect, or not. But if you arrogantly chase some poor contractor, and publicly needle them because they are unavailable to you, or for whatever reason don't leap at the chance to share their experience and knowledge with you, what incentive do you provide them to accept your money? Suppliers always have to walk a fencetop and risk telling a customer what's best for them (and running the risk of the customer going away) or just (shamelessly) booking a deal. Which of these two styles is best encouraged by a possible buyer's arrogance?

2. An increasing number of customers want to do business via the internet.This may be true, but the net also provides droves of faceless, nameless, and sometimes (unfortunately) useless netizens an avenue to consume time. Serious customers know how to get what they want, lazy tire kickers aren't any more appealing to tuba sellers (private or "business") than they are to any other salespersons. Enquiries such as "how much" by mail via an anonymous hotmail account really are not the way to show sincere interest.

3. Excellent as all of the venders we discuss here are, customers clearly are beginning to EXPECT to get responses to e-mails within a few business hours. I see no indication of such expectation. What I have seen is whining and belly-aching, and lately directed at some pretty good sellers at that (neither of which incidentally work anywhere close to full time as sales people.)

It looks more to me like some 123.com-inspired "Denial of Service" attack.

To insist that such pain or enduring such disrespect is necessary to "do business" is not the best way to encourage musician/dealers to "do business."

4. If the proprietor is unavailable, someone else could field questions in his stead, even if only to let the customer know when the boss will be back. There is also technology that will allow all messages to be automatically replied to, with information about when e-mails will be answered and any alternative contact person who could be contacted immediately. In the bicycle hobby there has been attempts over the past two decades to "save the LBS." LBS stands for Local Bike Shop. Although catalog and internet sellers can give some schmuck with a credit card "the best price" and do it quickly, their priority is getting your money as quickly as possible. In such a scenario, if your bike arrives with a taco-ed (bent) wheel, they sure as heck don't have the same speedy ability to correct it. Oh, I will not presume to say whther this is a right or wrong way to "do buisness".....but it certainly excludes the majority of what actual customer service really is. You're right Joe, a store-front would have staff and (presumably) the means to reply to (potentially) thousands of e-mails a day....wehther they were legitiate enquiries or spam. But, and I hate to say this, most people have real lives....and have to decide on the economics of paying for such resources.

5. While failing to promptly reply to e-mail is perfectly the right of the vendor, in the long run MANY customers will choose to go elsewhere. This is just stating the obvious. I bet you a buck that more than a few really just say "so what???
Even Fred Marisch has had enough. I for one do not look forward to the day when "whatever the market will bear" becomes shameful quality control of hardware, credit card fraud/theft, "blem" and "second" horns being sold to uninformed, naive buyers, and a lessening supply of top horns to chose from. None of these possible outcomes matter much to professional sales people. And to demand a lock-step response to a checkbook or credit card authorization is unattractive to all but the most callow and shameless of professional sales persons.

T. Foxworthy


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