4 ms·

I do wish we could collectively arrive at a better standard for customer support than "Support by Public Shaming". I'll admit to having used the "Send an email

I do wish we could collectively arrive at a better standard for customer support than "Support by Public Shaming". I'll admit to having used the "Send an email blast to the company executives" method in the past for dealing with airlines and telcos, but I feel like even that was a tad more discrete. At least it was an internal email and not a Twitter rant or a blog post. Regrettably, most companies seem to be removing their executive emails from public-facing pages, making the social media bomb the last and increasingly most common resort. I suppose if we had a federal consumer protection bureau that actually had teeth, this wouldn't be necessary.

darkpuma 8y ago
It's not up to the customers to improve this state of affairs. It's entirely in the hands of the companies.
- BlackFly 8y ago
  The customers can rally their elected officials to legislate guaranteed 1+ year warranties... this is what European customers did a while back.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    That won't stop companies from giving customers the run around, therefore it won't obliviate the need to publicly shame companies to get issues resolved. It's not even clear what "1+ year warranty" would mean for many industries in which there isn't a physical good being sold. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for business regulation. I support mandatory warranties and the like. But it's not going to resolve the perceived social issue of customers shaming corporations for bad behavior, because companies will always find new bad behavior that skirts the law. Even if you have a legislature that's on top of the situation, there will still be a delay between when a company invents new bad behavior and when the legislature can create a new law against it. If it's not clear, I disagree that this behavior is even an issue. People shaming companies isn't the problem; companies doing things worth shaming is the problem.

darkpuma 8y ago

It's not up to the customers to improve this state of affairs. It's entirely in the hands of the companies.

BlackFly 8y ago
The customers can rally their elected officials to legislate guaranteed 1+ year warranties... this is what European customers did a while back.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  That won't stop companies from giving customers the run around, therefore it won't obliviate the need to publicly shame companies to get issues resolved. It's not even clear what "1+ year warranty" would mean for many industries in which there isn't a physical good being sold. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for business regulation. I support mandatory warranties and the like. But it's not going to resolve the perceived social issue of customers shaming corporations for bad behavior, because companies will always find new bad behavior that skirts the law. Even if you have a legislature that's on top of the situation, there will still be a delay between when a company invents new bad behavior and when the legislature can create a new law against it. If it's not clear, I disagree that this behavior is even an issue. People shaming companies isn't the problem; companies doing things worth shaming is the problem.