Mostly when it comes to dealing with various businesses, the end user is not really treated all that well. We are, after all, very small cogs in the machine as individuals. If, for example, you or I were to contact, say, the Washington DC football team about changing its name due to concerns we all have, you can bet that it would likely be thrown away or deleted (depending upon your method of contact) prior to even being read. If you were to send a message via twitter direct to, say, Optimum, about the very sneaky removal of the NFL Redzone channel from a very expensive package, you would, as I did, get a very polite but clearly canned reply, telling me that they did it so as not to raise the price of the package I had, however, I was welcome to add it back in for an additional $5 per month (how different is that from raising the package), and that they had included it as an insert with the billing months ago. The problem with that is that I have long transferred to electronic billing and with that, there are NO inserts, thus I only found out about it when I mistakenly hit that channel while scrolling and saw that it was no longer part of my package. Nothing I can say, as an individual, or even a series of voices, is going to change that since, frankly, they don’t care. Their actuarial sheets have already given them the numbers that most likely will express dismay, as well as the numbers of folks who will gladly pay the additional fee to keep it. The bean counters almost always win.

That said here is a counter experience I just had with a company who also does not know me from “adam”.

Backstory: I have a wide foot, I hate buying shoes on line that I don’t get to try on, worse, golf shoes never really give you a good feel till you play with them. I’ve been wearing Ecco’s for the past two years and while they are solid, they are spikeless and not as stable as I’d like, also they are starting to wear down a bit. I noticed an ad for a new shoe called Sqairz, while not sold in widths, the idea is a wide, square like toe box that would hopefully be comfortable, the design also helps with alignment (something I struggle with) and the soft spikes and additional features of the sole would seem to add to stability (thus better turn, better torque, longer distance). I called the number listed to ask some questions about fit and wanted to give them an indication of what I was wearing for different things. I never did get a call back, but when I did, I posted a comment to that effect on a post they had made.

Within an hour I received a message from the top person with a direct email address and he asked me to contact him. I did, he gave me his cell number, I gave him mine and we had a great conversation after which I ordered what I thought would be the proper size based upon my running shoes. They arrived a day later (nice rapid shipping) and alas, they were a bit too large. I contacted him, as he had told me to do after I got them, and he immediately sent me a size down, (again next day shipping) which it seems now are the perfect size [planning on playing 9 on a par 3 course today to test them “in the field”]. He also included socks with both pairs, and with the second pair a hat, small touches but none the less, considerate and appreciated.

Bottom line: Here I am an “end user” buying a product that, with luck, will last for at least 2-3 years, so the idea of repeat business is a ways up the line, yet I was treated as if I was the most important client in his contact list.

Very, very refreshing!!!