A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

The Customer is Always Wrong!

I'm plugging my "support entrepreneurs but be wary of capitalists" line. This lunchtime it was revealed that one of the contenders of the BBC's Dragons Den is getting his Reggae Reggae Sauce to market today. Peter Jones, one of the dragons is behind him. Jones is a great example of an entrepreneur in my view. So is Sir Richard Branson, not afraid to be where it matters, like visiting the site of the recent train crash.

Not so with the capitalists. These are the guys who run the big corporations, take the fat bonuses but hide in the cupboard when the going gets rough. They send out "representatives" to cast blame elsewhere.

In recent months we have seen Cadbury's trying to dodge the salmonella scare, Bernard Matthews suggesting their turkeys didn't come from Hungary and generally being "difficult", Tesco at first casting aspersions about their customers and claiming their fuel was OK, and there have been plenty more. And don't you notice the supine quangos all muttering nice words of reassurance in support. It's all down to the lawyers telling them to keep their mouths shut. Trouble is it always backfires on them. Tesco had to come clean and say they would look at compensation. Bernard Matthews admitted that turkey meat did come from Hungary, and so on.

Last night on BBC's Watchdog programme Renault UK was being taken to task, yet again, for not responding to customers complaints about dodgy bonnet catches. On particular models of the Renault Clio, the bonnet will come undone and fly up hitting the windscreen. Renault seem to take as much interest as an old man in a deckchair on a sunny afternoon!

Presenter Nicky Campbell went round to Renault HQ to seek an interview. They didn't want to know. Now on Renault's website they state that they are "Committed to the very highest standards of corporate governance, Renault is pursuing its drive for transparency to strike a better balance between management, supervisory authorities and shareholders." But what about the customers?

The guys in charge are seen here. Do any of them really care?

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