Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Laurie Solomon wrote:

> Just as an additional afterthought I suspect that when the economy was
> booming the corporate culture was such that they did not really give a damn
> about the customers and customer service when downhill; however, with the
> economy souring - especially the high tech economy - many of these
> corporations have suffered from lost sales and profits which has caused the
> corporate culture to undergo a change to the new attitude of giving customer
> service and public relations a new high priority.  Thus, companies like HP
> and Epson, as well as others, are now doing things that they would not have
> done or thought about doing in the re past when business was good and .coms
> were flourishing with everyone thinking that the economy was never going to
> turnaround in this new high tech world which appeared to be operating under
> new and improved economic laws.
> 

It does seem somewhat ironic that when things are good, and they have 
extra money due to higher profits, etc, that they get stingy and 
difficult about customer relations, and then when things go "sour" they 
then loosen the purse strings.

But strangely, something I was told at a banquet I attended last night 
make sense out of this.  The speaker was the chief economist of 
Waterhouse brokerage.

They invited me because I won one of those stock chase contests... I 
lost more money than anyone else, so they figured if they just watched 
my moves and did exactly the opposite, they could make a fortune ;-)

Anyway, he stated that only 50% of excess warehoused inventories had 
been sold off at this point.  He then said that the other 50% left over 
within the high tech industry was going to have to be written off and 
either given away, or sold at cost or less, since it was rapidly 
becoming stale.

In other words, look for some bargain basement pricing on last years 
models or high tech items.  They longer they hold them the "more 
worthless" they become.

So, what better way to use up stagnant inventories than give them to 
"good customers" as part of customer service?  I am already seeing 
relatively inexpensive computer systems being offered with "free 
monitors, printers and scanners" and some with digital cameras thrown in.

Art




Art