I don't know about you, but I live in the realm of services. I haven’t been buying things for a long time, but buying services. Things are secondary to the service.
Household appliances? Service! The speed of delivery, the speed of connection or the politeness of the staff in the store. Products? Service for their sale and delivery. Cloth? For me personally, convenience of parking and minimizing my time for purchasing are the very first criterion for selection.
Then pure services begin - repairs, haircuts, marketing and consulting services. And here I want to tell a few short stories that happened to me over the past couple of weeks.
Test drive a new car. I made an appointment with the dealer, arrived in a minute, the manager was not there. As the secretary said: “He’s with the Clients (!) for a test drive!” After 30 minutes of waiting, I left and signed up for a test at another dealer on the way.
Cabinet assembly. The cabinet was delivered on time, but not all of it. Some of the details were lost somewhere. The wardrobe was assembled, but, of course, not the whole one. So it stands, half assembled. It has not yet been possible to call and find out where the rest is. Although every time the telephone operator diligently writes down my phone number.
Repair. The company has completed the renovation, there are some small details left that were put off a little due to my absence. The contract, however, was closed. Since then, the “little things” have remained in the same state.
Carpet in dry cleaning. According to the plan, it should be ready on the 20th. 19 I pass by and ask if it will be ready tomorrow? They answer me: “Maybe, maybe not. Anything can happen. Cars break down. Traffic jams."
It can be summed up that the realm of services is a mess. Most likely, bABOUTa bigger mess than many noisier and more obvious markets. Type of construction and minibuses. You can attribute everything to national characteristics, but I don’t believe in them. What do all these companies have in common?
They have a common planning horizon. They all don’t believe that they will exist even in 5 years, let alone 10, 20, 50 or 100. All these companies live today and at most tomorrow. None of them are building a company with a hundred-year history. None of them can even imagine that this is possible. They do not have such an option among their possible business plans. This is what unites them.
Therefore, one dissatisfied client is not a big deal. Next time I won’t order something from them soon, which means I’m not interested. Imagine a company with a horizon of 50 years? Any client can come back and buy more, be it in 2 years or 5 years or 20. I have to work so that I have orders both now and in a decade.
