Posted on 06/15/2014 2:09:06 PM PDT by Kaslin
Big Business does some things that are utterly necessary in modern society. They build airplanes and cars. They run airlines, phone companies, credit card companies and banks. But there is not a person among us, including employees of big businesses, that has not withered with frustration from confronting these businesses with a problem and then receiving little or no results.
Even though big businesses get the most attention, the vast majority of people in the U.S. work for small businesses. Small businesses by nature are more reactive and responsive to their customers. They are closer to the customer and more directly feel the pain of any problem. I have a saying, “It is not that you make a mistake, as everyone makes mistakes, but it is how you deal with the mistake that keeps your customers satisfied.”
Our recent encounter with American Airlines is a prime example of the dichotomy between big and small business. We are not some random AA customer, as both my wife and I are lifetime Gold members. That is not to say the pedestrian customer should be handled as we were treated.
We flew First Class (via miles) to Miami en route to Lima, Peru. We received early notification our flight would be delayed an hour. Then it was a delayed a little longer and it became apparent we were going to miss our Miami connection to Lima. My wife -- who handles these matters -- had them change us to a flight on AA’s partner airline LAN, which is based in Peru.
Then I went to the counter and asked what was to happen with our bags, tagged for both AA flights. This person clearly did not know. I asked to speak to her supervisor who told me they should be transferred to the LAN flight. But she was not sure. I asked a simple question: “Why don’t you pick up the phone and call your people in Miami, give them the tag numbers and make sure they get transferred?” You would have thought I asked to dig up the grave of George Washington. What I asked would have been what any small business person would have done, but the supervisor just confirmed we were on the flight and sent us on our way.
Before you jump in here and think, why did we check bags?, I will tell you why. We have flown all over the world with various airlines and never had a problem. Second, our trip was for an extended time and I am partial to clean underwear and we are not keen on doing laundry on vacation.
When we arrived at the nearly-deserted Miami airport at midnight, we had to race across to the LAN terminal. We arrived at security and were told we could not enter because we did not have LAN boarding passes. We asked the security person to call ahead to LAN who said we were not booked on the flight. At this point, for very experienced travelers like ourselves, we should have gone back to American Airlines, collected our luggage and gone out on the flight the next day, but we were anxious to get to Peru. That was a strategic mistake. It was already 12:30 A.M.
We got on the phone and called the American Airlines 800 number and were told by the person who answered, “Sorry we cannot do anything at this time.” One again I said let me speak to your supervisor. ‘Amazingly’ the supervisor was able to get us on the flight. LAN sent a staff person to security with our boarding passes and we got on the flight; it was quite a nice experience with their lovely staff.
When we arrived in Lima at 5:30 A.M., we went to the LAN people and told them about our luggage. They said the bags were in Miami and coming on the American Airlines flight arriving at 9 P.M. They provided paperwork and everything appeared to be fine. We just had to go the day in our existing clothes. We checked into our hotel, slept some, acclimated to Lima and had a lovely dinner before heading to the airport to collect our luggage.
When we got to the airport we could not just go into collect our luggage because of modern security measures. We went to the American Airlines counter and handed them the paperwork. We were then told: “This is odd, your luggage is checked in on the flight that just arrived and one arriving at 4:30 A.M.” We were admitted to baggage claim where we found out our luggage did not arrive. So we went back to the American counter.
This is when big business kicked into its totally helpless mode. We asked a simple question once again: “Would someone call Miami and confirm they have our luggage and it is coming on the next flight?” We never got an answer, though I poised the question numerous times. We then asked -- you guessed it, “Can we speak to your supervisor?” While waiting another staff person steps in and tells us since LAN initiated the paperwork, they were responsible under international law. We pointed out the obvious -- LAN never had the bags, American only had had the bags, so how could they be responsible? After 40 minutes of back and forth between American and LAN, the supervisors showed up. That is when I told the AA supervisor that, as an American citizen, I am embarrassed an American company was putting this on the Peruvians. Why would anyone want to be partners with you if this is how you treat them? “Why don’t you just take responsibility for your actions? For God sakes, this could all be resolved if you just called Miami?” Fortunately, the supervisor from LAN took responsibility.
No small business would ever act this way and survive. This is what you do if your customer has a problem:
1. Apologize -- It immediately disarms the customer as angry as they may be.
2. Take Responsibility – almost no matter what happened you should have made it right the first time.
3. Tell the customer you are going to fix it and do so.
I have been coaching businesses for years that this is the way to handle problems. It works. I can only remember one time when a big company representative (AT & T) followed the three steps and I almost fell off my chair and then went on a rant about how wonderful she was. Almost always big business representatives are helpless to resolve a problem. I always end up with a supervisor after wasting untold time with a staff person un-empowered or unwilling to resolve the issue.
Americans are can-do people. We see a problem and we resolve it. That is how we run our businesses. That is why we get so flustered dealing with the airline, credit card companies or cable company when they just don’t fix what seems like an easy thing to us. If someone would have just called Miami and checked on the bags we would have all been relieved. Thankfully, the bags showed up the next morning, but one is left to wonder how these people stay in business.
This is why we hate big business. They mostly will not or cannot do. They do not empower their employees to resolve problems. They make us feel like a number. If they only heeded the three steps, they would be so much better off. It reminds me of what Ernestine said: “We don’t care; we don’t have to; we are the phone company.”
Big businesses use government to regulate against new, small business starts and private property rights—enforced consumerism.
Reasons that Americans do not like “big business”.
1) To start with, if at all possible, big businesses strive to become monopolies, or if that is not possible, duopolies, and if that is not possible, oligopolies. At the stage in their life cycle when they do this, they stifle competition, innovation, and seek a profit margin guaranteed by government cronies, at the expense of taxpayers.
2) Beyond this, when big business becomes a multinational corporation, they lose sense of their national identity, and can no longer be regarded as loyal to the United States. Their interests become similar to those of internationalists, if not exactly socialist internationalists, then similar enough for Americans to look at them distrustfully.
In effect, they are willing to undermine or even destroy America if there is a profit in it for them. In the meantime, they want to direct both American foreign and domestic policies to their benefit, not the American benefit.
3) Do not underestimate the dark side of the above. If a big business can earn an extra ten cents per unit profit, it will outsource production to another country, laying off hundreds or thousands of Americans, and lobby hard for “free trade” to keep the flood of foreign produced goods coming to America. If they cannot make money by outsourcing, then they want the cheap labor to come to America, with “open borders”.
As I like to point out, if slavery was legal, such businesses would gladly embrace it as “good for business”; and even grotesquely state that as such, “it is good for America, too.” With a straight face.
Where could we find someone like that?
Why do I hate big business? Most of what they make are employed by non Americans in China, then sold by ILLEGALS at big box stores.
“Americans don’t hate Big Business.”
Yes they do. And with good reason.
The too big to fail banks.
Crony capitalism.
Buying off congress.
Getting the tax code written to favor them.
Trying to threaten or bribe congress to give them cheaper labor threw immigration reform.
Just ask Romney if Americans love big business.
“Reasons that Americans do not like “big business”.
I couldn’t agree more.
If you check a bag for a flight and don’t show up, yes, they should remove the bag.
If you check a bag, show up for the flight, make the connecting flight but your bags don’t make it due to the airline screwing up so they put the bags on a following flight, then they go ahead and do it.
I’ve had that happen two or three times lately. My flight into Atlanta is late so my three hour layover is cut to one hour, which is barely enough time to go from one side of that airport to the other jogging and no way enough time for a union employee to drive my bags from one plane to another.... So I arrive at my destination to find that my bags are four hours behind me on another plane.
That doesn’t get any sympathy from me, going to Starbucks for coffee in the first place is a poor choice. I could go to Waffle House and get better coffee for less money and with better service.
Starbux has to be the most incredible business model ever.
I went to one on Saturday (only to obtain spouse mandated gift certs for SILs for Father’s day).
There were people lined up outside the door waiting to by $4 cups of coffee.
Un-freaking-real
Businesses big enough to collude with government, and actually do so, to protect themselves and grow via regulatory or legislative fiat are not particularly likable.
I have never actually entered the door of such a place but I have tried their coffee at home and find myself in total agreement with this distinguished gentleman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mjnzqi5gs
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