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I had ten years of work experience with a large American corporation. One of the products this company sold cost $100,000. The buyers were usually governmental bodies in the U.S. or other countries. My last assignment with the corporation was that of a public-relations hack. I was informed the first day in PR that I should never say anything substantive to a member of the press. When reporters called to ask about customer complaints about expensive products and services, I never lied to them and I never really told them anything important. I talked in circles. I said I'd have to get back to them after finding answers. I knew they'd say that by then the story would be "old news," and they wouldn't be interested anymore. I would have quit this job in a minute when I was single, but my wife had just had our first baby and I had to make sure that baby could have the best care she needed.

In this same company, I found confirmation of what I already suspected. Large American corporations know that the best way to increase profits is to reduce the number of workers and dump their tasks onto the workers still there. The euphemism for this is "productivity improvement," a disguise for the practice of expecting more work from fewer workers. This practice naturally increases stress among the remaining workers, and this leads to more errors and more customer dissatisfaction. This then leads to more stress for the PR hack when reporters call from Yonkers or Fort Worth to ask about customer complaints in their cities.

The lack of customer service from large companies is another example of "productivity improvment." Get rid of the workers who used to answer the telephone and tried to help you solve your problem. Replace them with FAQs, reams of online self-help written by monkeys, and fix-it-yourself instructions that only a mechanical engineer could understand.

I agree with the other respondents who said that you're more likely to get good customer service from small companies and mom-and-pop businesses. Mom and Pop know that the success of their business depends on remaining on good terms with the people in their own community.

Learn more about this author, Michael Scofield.
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