Skip to main content

Bean Counters and Pyromaniacs

This morning in an attempt to buy a digital ID from Verisign, an error message appeared with the instruction to call customer support, listing the phone number. After an interminable wait, the service representative said that Verisign supports digital ID only on line. Explaining that the error message occurred only after the credit card entry, she referred over to the merchant account support. The operator at the merchant account referred back to Verisign support with the same endless loop of inaccessible destinations. From there, it was easy to seek other competitive options, not previously considered. Indeed, there were three or four others listed by Outlook Express.

Pyromaniacs are rather easy to identify and eliminate from the customer service staff. These persons are compelled to "burn all bridges" behind problems that they cannot or merely find difficult to resolve. The greater problem is purging administrative management of the pyros. Typically a successful enterprise will grow exponentially and with little or no administrative control, driven by engineers and marketing people. Support will be top notch. The customer will be highly valued, large or small. Then some investment banker will insist on better administrative management, and in come the bean counters. Bean counters apparently operate by three laws. 1. Information may not be shared. 2. Engineered scarcity is the highest order of good. 3. Customers are mere commodities.

Computers are good at doing things that our brains do not do well: accurately store and make accessible vast quantities of data, apply statistics to the data, move all forms of digital information, data, voice graphic text etc. Computers do not think well. Artificial intelligence is in its infancy. The attempts to assign computers to replace humans for solving complex variable problems fail miserably. Computers multiply productivity, but they can also multiply loss of business when misapplied.

Business depends upon relationships. Small businesses tend to become big businesses. There is no way to determine which ones. The enormous cost savings and productivity gains engendered by computerizing the telephone receptionist and the customer support burden seems far outweighed by the loss of customers, reputation and return business. The bean counter will say, there is no customer loyalty. Ah yes, and he makes it so.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Utopia

The Devil promises a utopia of worry-free egalitarianism beckoning you to an Orwellian hell of despondency. Its a matter of giving or taking. Work for your family and community supporting the common good, or take from the wealth of those who produce and promise benefits to those who do not and those destroyed by the theft of their own creation.

Election 2024

The November 2024 election presents a significant challenge, transcending the traditional Democrat versus Republican divide. This election will determine the future of the American Republic, Western civilization, and potentially the survival of the human species. Plato suggested that democracies tend to devolve into oligarchies, and we are witnessing that transformation before our eyes. Three major trends in the U.S. threaten to replace our Constitution and representative government with a totalitarian, internationalist, socialistic oligarchy. First, seventy years of Soviet subversion, the Vietnam War, and generations of youth who were taught to reject American institutions have undermined U.S. leadership. Now, Chinese espionage, bribery, and infiltration further contribute to the erosion of America’s traditions of citizenship, enterprise, and prosperity. Second, NGOs in Washington, an entrenched bureaucracy, and organizations like the Trilateral Commission prioritize internation...

Inflation

Many retail investors buy individual stocks with growing confidence in a narket that has a long run. Many fail to appreciate the way the market reflects inflation. Company revenue consists of inflated number,s as does cost and profit, thus the market reflects true inflation which must now be near 100%.