Modern business practices that you hate

[wickedmonkey]

Fucking cold-calling, it's back on the rise in my area unfortunately and it's getting worse.

It used to be some Pakistani guy (no offence to any of our Pakistani forum goers!), told to introduce himself as "John" or something equally asinine because his real name might hurt our brains, calling up and trying to help me claim PPI insurance compensation, compensation from an accident I never had or some other garbage.

Now?

Now it's a fucking automated message trying to get us to call a number about this crap.
I sometimes get voicemail messages asking me to call a number urgently too.

Somewhere down the road someone will burn for this bullshit.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

I don't know where to start, but since this is a gaming site I'll stick to that.

DLC. Fucking DLC.
From recycling content of previous instalments, through adding items/skins/paintjobs and tiny bits of actual gameplay content, to fucking chopping off parts of the game story and selling them separately and all that at a modest price of up to 1/4 of the original game price.

I have never bought one and I never will, and all the companies that sell them can collectively suck my hairy dick.

 

[Tien Shen]

Pre-order bonuses. To me, heaping all sorts of goodies if you pre-order just screams,"We have no confidence our game is good enough, so lets entice you with these freebies if you give us your money now, rather than later when reviews come out."

 

[katsabas]

This is specifically to doctors.

Signing contracts with pharmaceutical companies in order to prescribe more of any one drug so that they receive a bigger bonus, travels etc. I absolutely hate this tactic cause it not only greatly interferes with my job (pharmacist) but also because I am being bullied into giving specific products, either through the patients who get scared of their doctors (cause the latters tell them not to change the medicine, i.e. same pharmaceutical substance, different name on the box) or through the doctors themselves.

 

[CommanderL]

Selling an unfinished product at full price or, for extra audacity, more then the finished produce. I'm looking at you Planetary Annihilators

Planetary annihilation and they are only doing it so people who kickstarted it dont feel ripped of and also they dont expect people to buy it at that price it will get cheaper the closer it is to launch

 

[Zontar]

Selling an unfinished product at full price or, for extra audacity, more then the finished produce. I'm looking at you Planetary Annihilators

Planetary annihilation and they are only doing it so people who kickstarted it dont feel ripped of and also they dont expect people to buy it at that price it will get cheaper the closer it is to launch

I'm a customer, not a donor. The excuses don't matter, the only things that factor into the equation is: price, content. Nothing more matters from my end of the transaction. They lost a sale from me, that's for sure.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I'm going to go ahead and say I have the most problem with the modern consumer. It's the type of person who needs to be dazzled with something shiny to buy it and have no sense of quality. This type of consumer looks at buzzwords and specs only and often never even bother to look at something before making a purchase. This behavior screws up the market and makes it real difficult to find goods and services of good quality.

I sell mobile phones to business for a living and I am in complete agreement with you. Do you know how many different phones are on the market? Do you know how great a lot of them are? There are loads of fantastic phones, specifically from Samsung and HTC. The new Moto G is a mid range phone for a low range price. ut if you ask someone what they want, it's always "iPhone." Apple haven't made a superior product in ages. iOS isn't as good as Android, either, really. Customers are idiots who prefer to go for a shiny brand over substance or quality. Most don't even do their research.

OT: Marvel and DC do my head in a bit. The way Marvel pander to movie goers seriously annoys me, even though it shouldn't. And DC's Bullshit isn't much better, with their constant creative team changes and editors who don't know what they're doing. Mostly, when it comes to DC (but Marvel too, to a point) it's the way they think everything needs to be dark and gritty. Arrow is a perfect example of that.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Not being able to go shopping, or just buy a soda pop, without having to answer twenty questions at the checkout.

"Have you heard about our (insert store special card here)."
"Yes/No."
"Would you like to sign up for it? You (insert bonus feature here)."
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? You get such-and-such, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up."

Can I please just make my purchase now? I don't need to save five percent on a 1.50 purchase. Were cashiers always this pushy and I just never noticed when I was kid, or has it gotten worse?

I used to work in a retail company and I think it is a more relatively new practice to badger to customers to such a level as they do now. At least it is drilled in more to practice than it used to be and every shop is getting its own loyalty card etc.

The sales assistants in our stores were graded/rated on their performance and a major player in this was the selling they did at the till. The extras that they pinned on to someone who was already purchasing something. Kind of like a commission basis, but they were awarded points which they could spend in our store for getting these additional sales, rather than a monetary bonus.

On top of this, if they were seen 'not' to ask, then they were called up on it and it became an issue.

Trust me, they probably hate asking a lot more than you hate listening to it, but it's one of those things expected of them.

It is definitely an annoyance for both parties involved though.

I tend to head towards self-service tills if I can and attempt to have as little human interaction as possible. What a wonderful person I am. But these machines are hardly ever used without issue, at least for me.

Oh yes, I know they hate it too because I unfortunately do still work in retail. And I go through exactly what you just said. If my conversion, as they call it, is under 2% for the week, the next week my supervisor stands behind me and grades my performance. It drives me nuts because I hate it when I'm shopping at other stores and the fact that I have to put people through something that annoys me just makes it worse.

 

[Folji]

Treating the customer as just as big a financial asset as the product you're selling them. It's as cynical as it is disrespectful, but it's one of the oldest cards in the book to just compare the customer to profit, and everyone knows it. When customer satisfaction and enjoyment, the experience with a product as the person who bought the damn thing, is just a thing that exists to convince the profits to let itself be milked, that's just groan-worthy to the max.

 

[Comocat]

I don't like the idea that every single thing I do online or even off-line like buying groceries is going into databases and being sold to advertisers and others who profit off personal information. It's troublesome and overwhelming to think that there is an entire shadow business that knows what I buy and what I look at, and I have no idea how much they know about me. I'm not bothered so much that Kroger knows I love a certain brand of ice cream, it does bother me that I have very little control about who is seeing that information.

 

[shootthebandit]

I recently got something in the mail that looked like an official government correspondence (jury summons/ticket/etc). It was sealed on four sides and had perforated edges you had to tear for privacy and everything. On the front was "SECOND CONTACT ATTEMPT- OPEN IMMEDIATELY" in all caps, bolded, everything. Panicking, I ripped it open in the car, thinking I missed something important.

What was it, you ask?

a motherfucking advertisement for motherfucking car insurance.

I about hit the fucking roof.

So there's your answer. Invasive, dishonest advertisements.

I have no problem with advertising and marketing. How would we know about half the stuff we do if it didn't exist? But when you start being irrisponsible and invasive like that (or on websites with pop-up windows or auto-playing videos, for example, then we have a fuckin' problem.

Car insurance is a dreadful business practice. In an age of equality its one of the few businesses that can discriminate between age, gender and employment. It basically makes assumptions about you and if you happen to be a young male then they assume you are a boy racer and then charge you over £ 1000 for your first YEAR (yes thats £ 1000 a YEAR) and thats pretty reasonable for a 17/18 year old.

Not only that but why do they advertise car insurance when its necessary

OT: I hate those signs on the motorway that say "tiredness kills. Take a break...........services 2 miles ahead". I understand the motorway service signs so I know when to pull off for a pee or big mac. However saying "stop at our services or you WILL die" is bad advertising

 

[geK0]

The ones that really upset have already been used.....

Frivolous copyrighting always annoys me a bit when I read about it. Like when King copyrighted the word "Candy" and filed all those lawsuits. This kind of thing is just profoundly stupid, I mean who the hell thinks this is okay? WHY IS THIS LEGAL?!?! (that's a rhetorical question, don't actually give me a long-winded explanation of how copyright law works, I've taken law classes : \)

The lawyers working for King MUST on some level find these lawsuits a little silly.

Not being able to go shopping, or just buy a soda pop, without having to answer twenty questions at the checkout.

"Have you heard about our (insert store special card here)."
"Yes/No."
"Would you like to sign up for it? You (insert bonus feature here)."
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? You get such-and-such, and it only takes a few minutes to sign up."

Can I please just make my purchase now? I don't need to save five percent on a 1.50 purchase. Were cashiers always this pushy and I just never noticed when I was kid, or has it gotten worse?

This is something that I've had to do at Walmart. I HATE having to make a sales pitch for people who just want to buy their shit and leave, I really do. Once I've met my quota I stop asking unless a manager is around.

 

[Lilani]

The title basically explains it

I'm sure everyone here hates many gaming business practices that are being exploited today(cough* Microtransactions *cough) but I'd like to hear more opinions outside of gaming.

I feel like you should have put this in the gaming forum if you wanted to specifically talk about gaming business practices. I came here ready to make a big long post on how we really should move to a 4 day workweek here in the US instead of 5 days (so instead of 8 hours for 5 days to get 40 hours, you work 10 hours for 4 days), and it seems like many others have already started such discussions.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

The title basically explains it

I'm sure everyone here hates many gaming business practices that are being exploited today(cough* Microtransactions *cough) but I'd like to hear more opinions outside of gaming.

I feel like you should have put this in the gaming forum if you wanted to specifically talk about gaming business practices. I came here ready to make a big long post on how we really should move to a 4 day workweek here in the US instead of 5 days (so instead of 8 hours for 5 days to get 40 hours, you work 10 hours for 4 days), and it seems like many others have already started such discussions.

Did you read my post correctly? I said I know people have some gaming opinions, but I'd like to hear other opinions OUTSIDE of gaming. I bolded that part for you. I didn't want opinions on gaming business practices.

 

[Lilani]

The title basically explains it

I'm sure everyone here hates many gaming business practices that are being exploited today(cough* Microtransactions *cough) but I'd like to hear more opinions outside of gaming.

I feel like you should have put this in the gaming forum if you wanted to specifically talk about gaming business practices. I came here ready to make a big long post on how we really should move to a 4 day workweek here in the US instead of 5 days (so instead of 8 hours for 5 days to get 40 hours, you work 10 hours for 4 days), and it seems like many others have already started such discussions.

Did you read my post correctly? I said I know people have some gaming opinions, but I'd like to hear other opinions OUTSIDE of gaming. I bolded that part for you. I didn't want opinions on gaming business practices.

Ooooooooooookay, that I did not read. Apologies, please continue :3