All Hat, No Cattle

The world is filled with big, stupid companies.

When it comes to the customer experience, they're "all hat, no cattle."

A story to illustrate.

I encountered a bug in the software from one of today's top 10 providers. The bug is so serious, it prevents any use of the product. 

My first plea for help spawned this canned email:

Thank you for submitting your case. My name is Henjie from Support. I have taken ownership of your Case number 12483149. I understand that you need some assistance. I won't be able to call you. For now, I will need to have your case endorsed to a team to make sure that we will be able to assist you further with your concern. Thank you for choosing [name withheld].

Four weeks, hours of my time, and 31 comparably inane messages later, no remedial action has been taken.

Disney likes to say, "no employee ever 'owns the customer,' but one employee always 'owns the moment.'"

At stupid companies, employees own neither customers nor moments. The only "owners" are the legal ones, who spend all their moments minding the share price, while buzz-talking auto-responders are left minding the store.

Entrepreneurs can take heart.