Still a ways to go

In the middle of December, I wrote an unpublished piece about the sliding economy having an up side.

My thought was this is when the flotsam is cleared, the bad boats moving up on a rising tide began to sink and the best would rise to the top. It would be a time of innovation and increasing customer service as everyone battled to draw the dollar.

By April, anecdotal evidence has me thinking we've got a ways to go.

I'm still not convinced there are so many critical businesses that should be kept afloat by artificial means. At least not at this cost.

But I'm also unsure how many are getting that it's now become better or be dead.

Here's my example. In a somewhat innovative move, the local outlet for a national pizza chain I've patronized for decades dropped a note at my home. It said it wanted to be thankful for continued business and therefore offered a good discount on a pizza. "It's a straight deal for straight dealing folks," it claimed.

Things got crooked. I ordered to pick up the pizza with a cohort on the way. I was then informed the offer was only good for delivery. I questioned how that could be as the offer made not such stipulation. "It's a typo," the poor order taker responded. I questioned why that was my punishment. "That's the manager's policy," she said.

Ah, the customer is always right unless a manager has blundered.

I cancelled the order and filed a complaint with the corporate office. Nothing much has changed there either. I've traded three or four emails with always the promise "we're looking into it."

Now, in the interim I tried a different, more local brand and liked it. So my habit has now changed, frustration level continues to rise dealing with a corporate bureacracy and I'm questioning the business sense of what used to be a given.

In tough times, attitudes have to be reviewed and change. That is survival. That is common sense. You can't even let individual customers go as the margins are so slim those individuals add up to be here or not very quickly.

Little bites out of business soon turn into consumption entirely.