If I may digress. This post reminds me of a song, “A Lover’s Question,” sung by Clyde McPhatter. I certainly am not a country/western music fan, but this one is pretty good. It’s got a good tune, some thoughtful words, and yes, even the backup group is good. It’s the kind of song that just might haunt you all day. You might even find yourself singing it without realizing it. More than that, you might find yourself identifying with it. If you can, you might look it up and play it, it is well worth your while, even if you don’t like country music.

I came to the above title from name of the song in a somewhat roundabout way. Originally, I started with “A Customer’s Question.” Didn’t feel that was apropos. I mean, we are speaking business, not love relationships. I was still somewhat tempted. It is kind of a catchy title. Nonetheless, I decided to use something not quite as good, but more accurate.

Now, getting down to the question and the reason for it. I would really like to know why big corporations like to (figuratively) shoot themselves in the foot. They make decisions they know are going to affect their bottom line and they do it without much true consideration. Consider Budweiser. Those that have read my post very long know that I don’t approve of alcohol at all. But this, this is really dumb. They have lost, what 7 billion dollars just to make a commercial that is friendly to homosexuals and unfriendly to their customers. And now, they can’t even issue an apology. The best they can do is march their Clydesdales out and hope for the best. I am sure that their stockholders have had a few things to say about that. They have likely said that they are desperately seeking an answer to why they did such a dumb thing. (Why did they do that?)

At one time, I had Xfinity cable and internet. I likely still would. However, one day, they started calling my home and suggesting we need a box for converting digital TV to analog. Don’t know if it was intentional, but they left both the wife and me with the impression that there would be no charge for it. We said no. We have but two TVs and they were both hooked up to cable. After the sixth call, one that I took, I agreed to let them send it. However, just to make sure there were no misunderstandings, I said that the first time they bill me for it, I’d pack it all up and take to the local store. They did, and I did.

They shot themselves in the foot. Why did they do that? It wasn’t so much the amount. I suspect that I could have returned the little box and had the cost removed. It’s the idea. They were dishonest. I told them what I’d do, and I did. My guess is that they didn’t care. At that time, they likely had enough customers, losing one or two wouldn’t hurt. I don’t know. Maybe they did have too many customers and they decided to prune a few.

I went to AT&T for cable and internet. Oddly they don’t love their customers either. I lost service so I called them up. Because I could not give them a 4-digit pin number, they refused to fix it. Fine. No problem I told them. I asked for an address to send the equipment and disconnected that day. Why did they do that? I guess they simply did not want to keep the over 2 hundred a month I was sending them. It must have been well decided on their end because I talked to two managers on the phone. Naturally, no face-to-face conversations here. No such thing these days.

It happens in local businesses too. I no longer go to McDonald’s, Wendy’s or Walmart. They have proved to me that they all have too many customers. So, Walmart has lost around two to three hundred a week. Sometimes more. They’ll never miss it. If they were to read this post, they’d not care. It would seem that they don’t like their customers. They just put up with them so as to make their billions off of us. I now go to Kroger. Maybe I spend a little more, but the service is far better and friendlier. Why did Walmart do that?

I could likely write thousands of words on this subject. I would suspect that there are many more who could. Those guys up in those board rooms just don’t seem to get it. They really do need customers. When they lose them they will lose their income. They just don’t seem to get it.

Being woke might impress one group of people. Going broke. Well. That could be a problem.