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Daddy said…
“You know the problem is, people think they need all the data that is for sale. That’s why internet corporations are so powerful.”
So I went out and had a look.
And I found many a powerful corporation indeed, in many corners of the world. Not just internet corporations, either. Even in Thailand, some corporations have become so Truly powerful, that they stopped caring about the customer. I have been told that one day, a high up manager in such a corporation was introduced to a customer. Before the conversation got underway however, the lower management had to explain this semi-big cheese what a customer really was. Since that day, they decided to maintain a safe buffer of employees between the top of the corporation and the customer.
I also found that such gigantic corporations had a huge number of customers; which may not be so surprising. However, the most popular products are the ones that modern society demands us to use. The products are indeed smartly advertised, and may make more people think they need them than is actually the case, most of their products aren’t completely useless. This is why, like drugs, the internet corporations consider their customers ‘users’. The users eat up their products as if it were cocaine.
So was my daddy right?
I don’t think so. You can’t blame an elephant for dropping a lot of dung! You can’t blame a fly for going for it! It is true that the customer is no longer king; or perhaps the customer is still king, but it’s in a constitutional monarchy, where the king is tied at hands and feet. The true customer friendliness of the corner shop has been replaced by a monstrosity which is large enough to expect that all customers are looking for exactly the same product. However, if we truly don’t need it, a corporation can’t sell it either. If we truly can’t use it, the product is likely to disappear from the play-stores.
When trying to get a personalized product from a big corporation, one must first break through the barrier put up between the decision makers and the customers; this even goes for the apparently personalised experiences sold by internet corporations. For anyone still single, there is an easy solution… We should date employees of the corporation that we need the service from. This employee will then go out of their way to get the personalized service. When many people follow this tactic, the barrier between the customer and the higher management will be broken, and before you know it, you’ll be talking about your friendly neighbourhood corporation!
Previously posted on My.Opera, when they still had a blogging service. I’m rerunning the Daddy Said series here; when I feel like, I’ll write a new episode. This one I wrote in 2009, and tweaked only slightly to include the internet a little. Thanks for your patience; I’m trying to get back to a weekly post, but someone very special has started distracting me.
Daddy said... 