We Are Not The
Customers, We Are Product
I recently came to a revelation concerning business activities and a
certain axiom that annoys me to no end.
“The customer is always right.”
I’ve worked customer service, and I know that this saying is not always
true. But it’s considered to be
absolutely true, because even if the customer is as wrong as Joe McCarthy and
can be proven to be so with facts, they’re still the ones paying for the
service; so if they’re not happy, they will take their business elsewhere. And for greedy self-centered corporate
executives that consider profit the end-all-be-all in the universe, that
possibility is an unforgiveable sin if they allow it to happen.
So “The Customer” may or may not be “right”, but the business world
supposedly assumes that they are at all times, even if they are not. Because to operate like “The Customer” is not
right means potentially losing money, which is a bad thing if your whole
purpose of existence involves getting every single penny that you can from “The
Customer”.
Got it?
So why does it seem like the business world is now ignoring this axiom?
Social media websites like Facebook are hell-bent on getting every
single piece of information they can from you about you and your family and
your friends and everything connected to you.
I am continually asked to provide a phone number, where I was born,
where I ever worked, anyone that I ever knew, what my favorite foods are, what
movies I’ve seen, what books I’ve read… And I wouldn’t mind sharing some of those
things on my own terms, but it seems like the social media administrators don’t
want to wait. They demand that I give up
this information and harass me with messages to comply.
And of course there are the ads.
And the little encouragements to “like” and visit certain threads. I’ve actually gone over some
of the more annoying elements of social media, and some of those could have
been prevented through more attentive management.
Not exactly what “the customer” wants, is it?
Well there is a very simple reason for that.
It is because you are not “the customer” in the equation.
You are the product.
Think about it. How do social
media companies like Facebook make their money?
They make their money through advertising placed on your activities. You’re not paying them! You’re not giving them one single penny
directly. Only the advertisers and the
companies they are partnering with are doing that.
If you’re not paying them, then you cannot be “the customer” in the
equation. And since social media
companies like Facebook only make their money by being able to market stuff off
the content being posted, and you are the ones posting the content, then you
are really the product.
That’s why they want all the information they can get off you. That’s why they want to track every action
you take and every purchase you make. That’s why they want access to your email
address book and your instant messaging buddy lists. Because then they can make their money by
marketing all of that stuff to advertisers.
And it’s not just Facebook. It’s
YouTube and DailyMotion and the other video hosting services. It’s Blogger and WordPress and the other blog
posting services. It’s all of the email
and instant messaging services. It’s why
they can provide “free” things for you… because you are not “the customer”. You never were.
You are the product!
And as the product, they don’t have to care about what you want. They don’t have to care about how you are
being treated. They don’t have to care
about advertisers using your images in their ads and making money off them. That’s why you’re there as far as they are
concerned. Oh, that was your smiling
face that you posted on Facebook that is now on some teeth-whitening pop-up ad? That’s your bikini-clad body on some travel
website banner ad? Thanks for donating
the material! Nice camera work!
And it’s not just online businesses adopting this model of you as the
product instead of you as the consumer.
Have you noticed that movie theaters are wasting more and more of your
time showing ads before they show their scheduled movie?
Case in point: I went to see “X-Men: Days of Future Past” on its
opening weekend. The movie was supposed
to start at 1pm. I got there at 12:30pm and
was given a half-hour of commercials and fluff promotions. And that was fine, because it helped pass the
time away. Then it was 1pm, the
scheduled show-time, and they started in on still more commercials. We’re not even talking about trailers of
other movies! We’re talking full-on TV-style
commercials! By the time the movie
itself started, a whole thirty minutes had passed. (And, yes, I was looking
at my watch to see when that happened.)
It was bad enough that I paid an obscene amount of money for popcorn
and soda, but to have to sit there in the theater for an extra half-hour before
I could see a movie that I had already paid for, that’s insult on top of
injury.
But, then again, the theater doesn’t really make too much money off you
through the box office. They need to get
it elsewhere. And if they can’t get you
for the refreshments, then they need to get it from advertising. So they don’t see you as the customer
anymore. They see you as the product.
Look at radio and television. Programming
executives have long had very little regard for what you want to see because,
for the most part, you are not the ones paying for the programming. The sponsors are. That’s why the subscription movie channels
like Home Box Office and Showtime and Cinemax and Starz are able to provide
quality original programming. Because
we, the viewers, are actually paying for them!
We’re the ones paying for “Game of Thrones”, with the nudity and
violence intact. We’re the ones paying
for “Shameless” with the language and the nudity and the drug use and the
overall weirdness intact.
Now look at what CBS and ABC and NBC are offering. “Hell’s Kitchen” and “MasterChef” and “Survivor”
and “American Idol” and “Big Brother” and “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette”
are all repeats of the same formula with just the occasional twist here and there. The sitcoms are all pretty much the
same. The Sunday Animation shows on Fox
are pretty much all the same. It’s all
lather-rinse-repeat.
Even the cable channels like AMC and Arts & Entertainment take huge
risks trying to be like the subscription movie channels, because the money they
bring in is not from the people that actually watch their shows. It’s from the cable and satellite providers
themselves.
In fact, look at the disputes from channels like AMC and The Weather
Channel with providers like DirecTV.
They are all about money. And it
doesn’t matter what the people want, because they’re not the ones that pay AMC
or TWC. It’s DirecTV and Dish and the
cable companies. And they get a good
portion of their money from advertisers.
This why a
certain megalomaniacal cable giant is seen by some as callous and oblivious
to customer service. It’s because they
know that you, the viewers, are not really “the consumers” as far as they are
concerned. You are product. That is how they see you, and that is how
they treat you.
And, yes, this idea that you are the product instead of the customer is
especially seen in politics.
Do you know why politicians listen to special interest groups and
K-Street lobbyists more than the voters?
It’s because they’re the ones giving the big bucks, and also because
they’re the ones that are promising to actually bring the voters to do their
bidding.
In other words, the lobbyists and special interest groups are seen as
the customers… with you quite literally as the product.
Hey, you’re not the ones paying for the super-expensive political ads. You’re not the ones footing the bill for the
career politician’s campaign. All you’re
doing is what they tell you to do. You’re
the ones buying into their scripts, regurgitating their talking points, and
voting exactly the way they tell you to vote.
How many of you keep saying you want a different candidate? That you want a third party? But you don’t vote for them, do you? Why?
Because the special interest groups tell you that they can’t win. No other reason than because they tell you
so.
Like I said, you’re nothing more than just product to them.
Let’s get brutally honest here... we’re all screwed when we’re treated
as product, and it’s becoming way too comfortable for businesses and government
entities to see us as being nothing but product.
This idea that we are nothing but product for others is really nothing
new. We just called it different names
back then. Serfdom. Fiefdom.
Indentured servitude. Slavery. But the concept is still the same. One person or one group owning other
people. Reducing whole segments of the
populace to sub-human items of ownership to be manipulated, controlled… used for
their advantage, and for their advantage alone.
And no matter how many “perks” or “freebies” or “value-added services”
that are given, a slave by any other name is still just that.
The idea that “the customer is always right” implies a sense of
obligation for the business world, as well as a sense of equilibrium. The customer supposedly has all the power in the
business world. They can supposedly
choose to go elsewhere if they’re not satisfied.
The problem, however, is it presumes that they have a choice. If there are alternatives. If they know that there are alternatives. And if they really are “the customer”.
Here’s a good tip… if you’re not paying money for the service, then you
really are not “the customer”. And then
it doesn’t matter if you’re in the right.
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