Originally Posted by
samkl
The spiteful comments and weird airing of dirty laundry, I don’t get it. Seems tacky. But hey, I’m not involved, and I guess it’s entertaining?
Yeah, in my business we were told early on not to do that in front of customers. Save it for co-workers or face to face with your competitors. Not good to do at a trade show either as I've seen the results of overnight equipment sabotage.
But in front of customers? It usually backfires, which has led to lost business.
Matter of fact, one of our long term competitors would tell our customers that the machines they bought from us were pieces of crap. One time right in front of me and the customer as I'm servicing a machine. I just let him dig his own grave as he wasn't allowed back in after that. That particular competing company went out of business in 2009 and it turned out that whole company acted like that.
I ran across a few of the same trash talkers on service calls after 2009 and their manner had changed considerably. Having to work from home self employed with no steady paycheck seemed to force some humility upon them.