Posted by Atlanta Tuba Dad on February 20, 2004 at 18:17:15:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Tuba Consumerism & Emails posted by T.F. on February 20, 2004 at 11:41:04:
T.F. ranted, in part:
"Still, not only do I strongly disagree with your characterizing this thread as an arguement, I cannot even really see a "rebuttal" in your post, though its pretty obvious you feel your company's business strategy is something you exepct from near-anyone who may ever past-present-future presume to accept any money from you."
You're missing the point. The 'Net works the way it works. You may not like it but your dislike changes nothing. If I didn't want to grow a business, I sure as hell wouldn't be advertising on the 'Net! I likely wouldn't be advertising anywhere, actually, but would rely on word of mouth referrals. Still, in nearly 40 years working in multiple industries, I have observed very few businesses to have been successful in intentionally maintaining flat sales. They either grow or they shrink and that's an observation, not a requirement.
"Again, this discussion is like a denial of service attack, in that the goal is to force people with some presence on the web to act in a particular fashion, and it is using pure web resources to attack well-meaning supporters of the tuba-community while avoiding any possible literal or physical interaction with the targets."
Please explain to us how email is essentially different from telephone calls in that regard. Email is simply a communication tool. If I don't want a lot of phone calls, I unlist my number. If I don't want a lot of emails, I keep my email addy off the web.
"Is the goal of your company's business (simply) to sell a product? What about other possible goals for other "businesses"? "Service"? "Support"? "Fun"? Believe it or not "aggressive growth" is not the mantra of many stateside tuba suppliers, particularly the lower-volume, specialty, or local-store-front onesor even for many small businesses in the United States, whatever their product or service. To reduce their involvement in the supply chain to "are you trying to limit sales or grow them" is reductionist and grossly unfair."
Only in your interpretation. The point is when a business advertises it has no significant control over the level of response such advertising generates. Again, you may not like it, but that's the way it works. (FWIW, our company sells products, services, and suppport.)
"In the United States we've de-volved our "culture" or society to the point where two people enjoying a nice meal will (for some reason) allow a telephone call to interrupt their time together,even if they have an answering machine! Now, if someone were to burst into the house and interrupt them literally, we'd consider that rude at least. Why don't we think the same way about telephone callers and their expectations. Do YOU screen telephone calls? Or, do YOU get upset when you find out someone you KNOW screened YOUR call?"
Who really likes telemarketing or intrusive calls? Yes, I do screen my calls. Don't you?
You can rail about the situation all you want, if it makes you feel better. I'm going to screen my calls, unplug the phone when I don't care to be interrupted, or cancel my phone service to stop calls completely. To a very large extent I can't control what other people do; I can only control how I react or respond to their actions. Or do you have an efficient way of controlling how others act and behave?
And in response to your last question: how I feel depends on the situation. I might be irritated if the called party owes me money and I know he's avoiding me. I also might be amused if I suspect the called party is doing the horizontal tango with a POTOS. 8-)