Lack of Customer Service in the USA

[art]

I've seen good service and bad, some from within our company and some outside. Everyone has good days as well as bad and we only can help that the good days out weighs the bad.
"The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of the cheap price is forgotten"

 

[art]

I've seen good service and bad, some from within our company and some outside. Everyone has good days as well as bad and we only can help that the good days out weighs the bad.
"The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of the cheap price is forgotten"

 

[dmccarty]

From the dim recesses of my memory....

The reason companies pay for healthcare is because of the Nazis...

Ok, Ok, I'm playing around a bit but it is true. During WWII the G'vment put in place price controls to control the economy. As a result a company could not attract employees with higher wages...

But the company COULD attract workers with benefits. Kaiser Permanente was created to provide free health care to workers at Kaiser.

The problem with a company providing health care is that the worker is now really stuck with the company and many workers, me included, have no idea what the company pays in health care costs. This is bad for them and me. My "total compensation" includes health care. But I don't know how much the company pays so how do *** I *** know how much *** I am *** paid?

Service is decling because of the cost of providing the service.

When Eisner took over Disney in the 90's he really ***** the company. The business buzz word of the time was "paradigm" as in paradigm shift. Disney had an employee training program called Traditions which taught the new Cast Member how to act and why. My understanding is that Eisner killed/cut back this training since the business was under going a "paradigm shift."

At WDW you can still get outstanding customer service but people complain that it is not what it used to be. We have had some very good experiences and some bad ones as well. The bad incidents I don't think would have happened prior to Eisner. What Eisner did was cut costs buy reducing/removing Traditions training but he also cut pay.

WDW is a very expensive play to operate and it has 60,000 employees. The ticket and food prices ain't cheap by any means but I assume higher ups are getting a bigger piece of the mouses pie. I know in the 90's we where at a very good restaurant at WDW that over looks the Magic Kingdom. Eisner bought out the restaurant for a pary he was throwing. That had to have cost a small fortune.

I guess he save enough money by cutting Traditions training that he could buy the California Grill for the night.

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

I don't think an employer paying an employee's health insurance is a problem I think making that employer that pays' his employee's health insurance compete with slave labor or oppressed labor from a free trading partner country is the problem.

I agree with you about the 3rd world labor force. It's sickening. Its also hypocritical. We wouldn't want or allow American workers to be treated that way, we know it is wrong to treat people that way, but just because its across a border and greases a palm we look the other way.

But health insurance IS still an issue. If I'm not mistaken its the largest single expense second to salary that an employer has to pay. But that's only half the problem. The other half is that employers being required to provide health insurance has established an artificial market with large stock holder run insurance companies. This artificially inflates health care costs. So let's say employer A pays a salary of 20 rubals a year and pays 5 rubals a year for health insurance and the employee kicks in another 2 rubals a year for his health insurance. This makes his total compensation 23 rubals but 5 of those he never sees unless he is sick so his take home is really 18. But then take the employer out of the mix and put health insurance back in a real free market. This would drive prices down and instead of needing 7 rubals a year for insurance, you could get by on 4, all paid by the employee. This way, the employer could pay the employee a salary of say 24 rubals a year. This saves the employer 1 rubal a year and the employees take home is 20 instead of 18. Everyone wins except health insurance carriers. So make no mistake, employers paying for health insurance seems like a good thing, but it is not, it hurts us all. And it makes the American worker into an overpaid, unjustifiable expense for the employer who can now buy the goods from Thailand.

The other sad thing is that employer sponsored health insurance drives the cost up for individuals who want to buy their own and so the people who want to take responsibility for themselves, can't. And of course the left abhors people who are independant and self sufficient.

 

[gemini5362]

I remember the day a long time ago when I worked in a union out of college. Three ring circus, no teamwork, all about "me", and in all honestly, overpaid for the market for the simple labor being provided by the employees.

I stayed for a short time then left because the rules made absolutely no sense, and I had pride in whatever job I was given and did it better and faster than anyone else there (one reason for getting my butt reamed out by "union people" at this company).

Guess what happened to the company?

JMO

I dont know what happened to the company I do however know what has happened to a lot of companies that were not union. They went bankrupt or they decided to maximize profits by moving overseas. I do however know what happens to a lot of union members since I defend them in arbitration hearings. There is the young man who was discriminated against and won an eeo action. The next week the discipline started within two weeks he was fired. That was not good enough while he was fired and waiting for his arbitration hearing they thought up some new charges totally false and fired him a second time. He got put back to work with full back pay. We never even went to arbitration with his case. When it got to the level of my opposite number in the company they settled it because it was so obvious the firing was retaliation. Maybe I should talk about the young girl who had a baby that was born with a missing enzyme, the baby took six weeks to die after the funeral the girl tried to come back to work off of sick leave. Management started playing games with her paperwork to come back it took her 8 weeks to get back to work. She had to go through the tragedy of having a baby and watching it die then deal with management that wanted to cause her problems. What did it cost the two people in the example above to get back to work and paid. They paid their union dues. I will be the first to admit unions have their problems but try to stand up to abusive management by yourself and see how far that gets you.

 

[gemini5362]

I want to post an update on my sears experience. Sunday I spoke to a lady who told me she was the store manager. After she talked to me she called the associate manager on his day off and told him that she wanted him to try and fix this when he came in on monday. He called me on monday and told me that he could not get the delivery changed that late in the cycle. He was pretty unhappy with the system. What he was trying to do was to have the truck deliver in to the store. Then in his words he could take care of his customer himself. The game plan is for him to get the stove in the store and have his service man deliver it. In his words. If we can not break the service man free from his commitments I will get one of the employees from the store and we will bring it out in my pickup. That is the type of service I expected to recieve. I have been shopping at sears for a long time. I am glad that finally I got to a level where someone wanted to keep a customer and a sale.

 

[N80]

Where my land is located Mack truck convinced the county that they would come in and build a plant and that this poorest of counties would benefit from it with increased employement, better schools, etc etc. The county prostituted itself to get Mack to come. I think both the county and Mack were trying to do the right thing. Of course Mack came here to get away from the unions in Pennsylvania (I think).

Well, they built this massive plant. Started hiring and training. Started production and then the unions from where they left somehow won a lawsuit that said the the jobs here in SC belonged to the union member in PA and these union members started moving down here (with their union) and filling the jobs. Plant close in less than a year (I think). Everyone lost. Mack ate the expense of building a whole new facility. The county got nothing, not even taxes. The locals lost the few Mack jobs that they had. The union members lost their jobs also. I don't know diddly about how abusive or incompetant Mack management was, but it was clear then that the union was to blame for this fiasco. 100%. They ruined it for everyone. Now this massive plant is just rotting in the weeds.

And yet, BMW, Nissan, Honda, Toyota (which just replaced GM as the largest automaker in the world) and others do quite well in the non-unionized southern US. Granted, I'm sure these companies have the best management in the world, but they are using American workers to make the best cars in the world...HERE IN THE UNITED STATES....while Ford, GM and Chrysler flop around like fish out of water. What do they have in common (besides poor management)? Unions. Do the math.

I'm not giving corporate managment a free pass. They are equally to blame. Its like having two health problems. But its not like cancer and a cold. Its like cancer and a heart attack. They're both going to kill us.

 

[gemini5362]

I agree with you about the 3rd world labor force. It's sickening. Its also hypocritical. We wouldn't want or allow American workers to be treated that way, we know it is wrong to treat people that way, but just because its across a border and greases a palm we look the other way.

But health insurance IS still an issue. If I'm not mistaken its the largest single expense second to salary that an employer has to pay. But that's only half the problem. The other half is that employers being required to provide health insurance has established an artificial market with large stock holder run insurance companies. This artificially inflates health care costs. So let's say employer A pays a salary of 20 rubals a year and pays 5 rubals a year for health insurance and the employee kicks in another 2 rubals a year for his health insurance. This makes his total compensation 23 rubals but 5 of those he never sees unless he is sick so his take home is really 18. But then take the employer out of the mix and put health insurance back in a real free market. This would drive prices down and instead of needing 7 rubals a year for insurance, you could get by on 4, all paid by the employee. This way, the employer could pay the employee a salary of say 24 rubals a year. This saves the employer 1 rubal a year and the employees take home is 20 instead of 18. Everyone wins except health insurance carriers. So make no mistake, employers paying for health insurance seems like a good thing, but it is not, it hurts us all. And it makes the American worker into an overpaid, unjustifiable expense for the employer who can now buy the goods from Thailand.

The other sad thing is that employer sponsored health insurance drives the cost up for individuals who want to buy their own and so the people who want to take responsibility for themselves, can't. And of course the left abhors people who are independant and self sufficient.

While I would agree with you about most of your post I would add that the health care lobby in this country is a major part of the problem. In a lot of countries outside of the United States access to most antibiotics and other drugs do not require a physician. When I lived in Saudi Arabia you could buy antibiotics over the counter if you started coming down with bronchitis or other respiratory infection you went to the drugstore and got amoxicillan. This enabled you to start treating the problem quicker because you did not wait until your health had deteriorated that paying a doctors co-pay (or all the bill if you did not have insurance) was your only option not to mention waiting several hours in the doctors office to see them. Real medical reform will not happen in the United States until we break the strangelhold the AMA has on our ability to get medicines.

 

[LMTC]

I don't think the health care lobby is providers so much as it is insurers, administrators, and drug manufacturers.

And if you start taking antibiotics because you think you have bronchitis, you may be doing more harm than good. Bronchitis is technically simply an inflammation, and may or may not be caused by infection. So when you say "bronchitis or other respiratory infection" you're making a leap that may or may not be accurate. As I understand it, over use of antibiotics in this country has been a bigger problem than lack of access to them. George, or other medical pros, jump right in here.

 

[gemini5362]

I dont mean to say that doctors are not needed and I would never council someone to diagnose themselves for something they are not sure what it is. In my case I have had bronchitis at least 10 times over a 50 year period. I have had pneumonia probably 6 times at least. I know what the symptoms are when I start getting sick. Now as soon as I get the first symptom I run to my doctor and get antibiotics quickly before the disease has had time to spread. In a lot of countries I would just run to the pharmacy or keep antibiotics on hand. I am not proposing making drugs that become addictive available such as valium for instance. We dont seem to see a lot of news articles about overuse of drugs where they can be bought legally in a pharmacy though.


I might be incorrect and I will gladly listen to anyone that says I am wrong but I believe the AMA has a gigantic lobby and the AMA is at least partly made up by health care providers.