Consuming Confidence

Personally, I like this new feeling of being important. I hope you’re enjoying it too.

You and me, it’s our time in the sun. We have the power.

We’re consumers.

Just awhile ago, the high-flying MBAs and buccaneer investors got all the attention. What they thought and what they did and what they ate for breakfast were of absorbing interest. Now the light shines our way. Our every mood or move is scrutinized. Businesses are suddenly worried sick about us: How are we consumers bearing up to the nerve-racking economic news each day? How is our “confidence?”

Unless I’m wrong, there is something snide behind this question. The shrewd insiders who worry the most about our “confidence” display little of it themselves. They’re hunkering down--all the while desperately hoping that those of us who aren’t so crafty will keep spending and bail the country, the world, out of a recession.

So I have a thought about this matter of “confidence.” You see, I’ve learned a few things in this last decade. I’ve been bumped off airline flights, I’ve been hounded by telemarketers, I’ve endured every kind of shoddy consumer humiliation and runaround, all in the name of some entrepreneur’s bottom line. In other words, I’ve been out there with you on the receiving end of the go-go marketplace. So while it lasts, while we consumers hold the fate of the economy in our tender hands, I’m going to answer with a bottom line of my own.

I’ll keep spending money, as I have it. But I’ll spend it as if each dollar was a vote. Thus, I have devised my own scale of “consumer confidence.” No, I’m not speaking of the economy as a whole. Mr. Business Executive, I’m referring to your component part of it:

If I call and you have a human being answering the phone, my confidence in you rises 10 points. If you have an automated system with a menu that brings me back to where I started after pushing a multitude of wearisome “options,” minus 10 points. If the automated system asks me to enter my account number and then a human comes on the line to ask my account number, minus 10 points. For every minute I’m put on hold, minus five points.

As the magazine Business 2.0 recently advised businesses: “If you’re not actually trying to drive your customers crazy, you don’t have to.” Odd, isn’t it, that a CEO needs to be told such a thing.

When I encounter clerks, service technicians and salespeople, I offer five points for those who pretend they care the slightest about what they are doing. Another five if they can convince me they know what they’re doing. And five more if they can complete a single transaction without being interrupted by a phone call or a colleague who has gossip or without flagging down their supervisor to discuss break time.

I don’t know what fad they are teaching today in our business schools, but I go by the principle expressed in 1776 by the guru of free markets, Adam Smith. “Consumption,” Smith said, “is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”

I think he meant the customer comes first. Not as a hollow slogan, but as in: The customer really comes first.

Ergo, any business that, as a matter of policy, allows more than three customers in checkout lines without summoning more cashiers, minus 20 points. Any retailer that displays a vast range of product styles but none in my size, minus 50 points. Any manufacturer that cannot produce a basic model to accomplish the task without adding unnecessary buttons, bells, chips and gee-haws, minus 50 points. Any manufacturer who tells me that consumers prefer it that way, minus 25 more.

Any business that grants its executives bonuses for cutting employees, disqualified. I suggest these businesses consider the advice of former General Motors President Alfred P. Sloan: “Take my assets, but leave me my organization and in five years I’ll have it all back.” You might note: GM had more than a 50% market share back then.

Any business that lobbies Washington in the name of me, the consumer, but against the common social good, minus 50 points. Hint: Detroit and mileage standards. Any business that reduces the amount of product it puts in its packages and thinks I won’t notice, minus 50 points. Hint: Munched a bunch of corn chips lately? Any business that continues with an energy surcharge even though energy prices have stabilized, minus 50 points. Hint: Ask your dry cleaner.

So how’s my “consumer confidence?” Bottom line, you add it up.

As I said, I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts.