How business works

Posted by Herb7734 5 years, 8 months ago to Economics
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I have decided to drop my current diabetic material supplier. They are hard to get to talk to and don't return calls.After googling several different suppliersI found a very unenthusiastic attitude toward a possible new customer. Since I already had one like that, I kept on looking. I finally found a supplier who met all my criteria. They carried what I needed, They were able to take orders up to 11 PM, they honored my insurance, and they delivered.But I had to waste 1 1/2 ours on the phone until I got to them. However, they took care of me, answered all my questions and transferred my call to the proper person and the whole thing barely took 5 minutes. My kind of retailer!. I have experienced the unhelpful types more often than I care to. What has happened to "The customer is always right?" Or better still, "The customer is the customer, our source of income."There are fewer and fewer sales persons in brick and mortar stores, so, it's no wonder the internet is doing so well.Almost every retailer is delivering free so that you can watch "The Golden Girls" as you sit home and wait for your delivery. The world isn't changing, it has already changed.


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  • Posted by mshupe 5 years, 8 months ago
    It not only has changed, it is changing. Next year will bring even more choice.
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    • Posted by mminnick 5 years, 8 months ago
      Yes, we will have more coices. the question I have is: Will the choices be any better than the ones we have now? If the answer is no then better the one you know then the one you don't.
      If the answer is yes, let people know how to reach them. If they turn bad, let people know that as well.
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      • Posted by mshupe 5 years, 8 months ago
        I guess that's the beauty of the spontaneous order the drives free markets and rewards innovation. The market will decide what is better, and the innovators will live and die based on their ability to anticipate and adjust their outreach.
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      • Posted by 5 years, 8 months ago
        Who will say that the product stinks in a collectivist society? And who do you tell it to? Usually the very person promoting the product. One more reason why collectivism doesn't work.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 5 years, 8 months ago
    The internet is the perfect way to do business with a public corporation. It allows them to be a provider of a product or service with as little person to person interaction possible. It does not insure that the product or service is good but whatever it is you can use your machine to get it from their machine. The telephone is the worst possible way to do business because you do not know who you are talking to, they don't know you and didn't want to talk to you anyway. A letter or e-mail is slow but they leave a "trail" and corporate lawyers want the written record to show that business was conducted properly.

    When customers have no face and sales people do not report to the person that is the owner of the business, you will be lucky if you can even buy something in a store. I get good service at the supermarket because I pick up what I want, put it in the cart that I push up to the self-checkout where I pay with a credit/debit card, bag the items, push them out to the car and load them in the trunk. Everywhere else, if hit or miss.

    Several years ago I worked for a small company which was doing very well. We decided that top management needed nice company cars and the CEO told me to go buy 5 full-sized, nice cars. I went to 4 dealers before someone acted like they wanted to do business with me. All I asked was for a price for 5 basically identical cars for which I would pay for with a company check and they could deliver the cars when prepped and the check had cleared if they wanted. Two told me that they didn't have 5 cars the same, one said I would have to deal with the sales manager and he was busy, one said he had to talk to the owner and one said "what colors would you want the cars to be?"
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    • Posted by 5 years, 8 months ago
      I do miss the personal service that I used to get when I was paying a little more for stuff I got at Nordstrom's or some other upscale dep't. store.If I wanted to buy my wife an outfit, I could get a sales woman to make suggestions after asking questions. It usually worked out with a minimum of exchanges.
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  • Posted by rtpetrick 5 years, 8 months ago
    If you found the right supplier that met all your criteria, why do you consider that searching for 1-1/2 hour was a waste of time? Do expect things like this to seek you out?,,to fall in your lap. You only get out of life what you put into it.
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    • Posted by 5 years, 8 months ago
      I was pointing out that was something in which suppliers were falling all over themselves to get my business but were now scarce, and judging by the great quantity of diabetics out there it seems strange there were seemingly so few. I should have made that clearer.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 5 years, 8 months ago
    Even out here in flyover country things are changing rapidly. I have the choice of shopping as I always have, by going to the brick and mortar store, or ordering online and having products delivered. Even the grocers in our area offer home delivery, and most restaurants now offer home delivery in addition to takeout.

    Medical service in my area is second to none, with very prompt referrals to specialists, and records efficiently networked. My years of military service are paying off, since Express Scripts, the home delivery pharmacy offers generics at low to free cost, and lower prices for name brand medicines. My GP Dr is very sharp, and she's beautiful on top of that.

    Things just keep getting better. I can't wait to see what comes next.
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  • Posted by term2 5 years, 8 months ago
    The internet is a real game changer, It has radically increased the ability of customers to quickly explore and select the supplier they want. This makes the suppliers up their game to attract the customers. Our savior is competition, not government control
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  • Posted by GaryL 5 years, 8 months ago
    Insurance is Gambling! The insurer gambles that they have enough payers to offset the costs of the insured claims. It is really that simple.
    If you pay an annual premium of $1,000 for your insurance and you get $3,000 worth of supplies you better hope your insurance company has a lot of healthy payers. We have paid auto insurance for nearly 50 years and had a few broken windshields replaced. My brother has had three cars totaled and lots of medical bills from his and does not pay much more than we do.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 8 months ago
    "they honored my insurance, and they delivered.But I had to waste 1 1/2 ours on the phone until I got to them."
    The bad: They don't always think of you as the customer. The insurance company is closer to being "the customer". Patients give money to insurance companies, and the insurance companies give it back in the form of buying care from providers they have a relationship with. That relationship sometimes is more important to providers than the relationship with the consumer.

    The Good: You still found a good provider. Even for products and services the authorities are dead-set against, e.g. foreign labor, drugs, weapons, sex, willing buyers and willing sellers find each other.

    So you'll keep finding good providers, but it's a little bit of work thanks to rules from the gov't that are there to help you. (Reagan's most terrifying words)
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