What would you ask business if you had the chance?

What would I ask businesses? It much depends on the nature of the business, but here are some general suggestions:

– Will your company be honest in its marketing, and not make misleading claims?

– Will you promise not to take advantage of having my contact details and other information for marketing purposes, even marketing within your company?

– Will you publish an email address (not a web form) that can be found from the ‘Contact us’ link on the website?

– If your business involves regular payments, will your company allow me cancel a contract if I am unhappy about a forthcoming price rise?

– If your company is a retail business, can I be sure that your company will respect consumers’ rights, such as the Sale of Goods Act?

– Will your company monitor the operation of customer services and monitor complaints made directly and published on websites and social media?

– If you are a manufacturing company, will you act responsibly with regard to safety (e.g. prompt recalls), ethical issues (e.g.avoiding exploitation of children and poor working conditions), environmental issues (e.g. avoiding sale of products that are not durable) and safety (of users and all involved in production, distribution and sale)?

These are just a few points that come to mind.

As Wavechange says it very much depends on the business. So most of this is aimed at those stores that call themselves Supermarkets. When in fact there’s very little that’s Super about the practices they employ.

Companies are very quick to tell us consumers things they want us to know, so will companies that manufacture and sell “shrinking” goods be equally as quick to point out when you’ve made a product smaller. We don’t need to hear your excuses as to why you’ve done it, as quite frankly we don’t believe you. We just need to know you’ve done it.

Unit prices:
The consumer protection against unfair trading practices 2008 has a very unfair clause in it that lets shops not display a unit price for goods on promotion. Can shops making use of this get out of jail free, sign up to a scheme whereby they will display a unit price on all goods.

Can shops displaying unit prices please try harder to use the same units for all products in the same range. And FYI Jaffa cakes are NOT sold by weight so you can NOT use per /100g as the unit, as its not valid, Tesco I’ve told you about that many many times. please get it right.

Made up examples pack of sausages sold per 100g, pack of 10 sausages sold per kilo. And yes I know its a simple sum yo convert BUT we shouldn’t need to. It’s even simpler to get it right in the first place and the fact you don’t speaks volumes.

Can shops selling perishables sign up to a code to stop selling multibuys. if you want to do a buy one get one free then just do 50% etc. It will help cut food waste. and allow people only wanting 1 or 2 of a product to buy what they need and not what you’re trying to shift.

Can you stop changing store layouts, we all know its to get us to walk passed more things so we’ll hopefully end up buying more but its a pain trying to find things. Just ask an online packer in Sainsburys whose system says the product is one place when its been moved and no one has updated the system. He is then moaned at for having his picking rate drop as he’s had to roll the store looking for things and when he’s raised it with management they tell him to update the system, which takes him more time and reduces his picking rate further. So please just STOP IT.

As you can see I have very little trust in supermarkets.

I will second what Wavechange, william and malcom r have said. Only positive action, no words, can restore trust in business.

Business is there to provide a good service as well as make money, not just bamboozle consumers poorer and poorer. The poorer we are, the tighter the purse strings, the more economy stagnates, the less money business makes. Everyone loses except the super rich.

Business could use publicity to advertise its positive actions, eg as per some of the examples above, “I’m a Utility Company and I have a proper email address my customers can use to contact me”, “I’m a Supermarket and I actively discourage wastage of food by doing this, this and this.” And keep the prices reasonably down. More people win, fewer people lose. And surely business still comes out with a tidy profit?

But how do we tackle greed?

I have watched a number of TV programmes where chief executives go under cover and discover how their business actually operates on the ground. They usually have a shock. They are appalled at staff working conditions, pay & conditions of service, contracts of employment, and the vehicles, equipment and premises provided. Very rarely do they seem to look at what the customer is getting. Do they care? Is the bottom line all that matters? – If sales are up, everything’s alright.

Bosses are consumers too; they must have similar concerns to those of us who use Which? Conversation to flag up deficiencies in products and services. Or perhaps not . . . maybe they are so well insulated by wealth and status that their company’s actual trading behaviour is below their radar.

So my questions would be :

:: Will companies demonstrate that they are trustworthy by listening to customers conscientiously, in a timely fashion, and with appropriate reactions?

:: Will they stop trying to buy our trust or loyalty through devious offers and rewards and go back to honest and ethically justifiable pricing, marketing, packaging, merchandising, and discounting.

:: Will they invest in product quality and durability, worthwhile warranties, professional sales performance, and technical support?

:: Will they sign up to the massive cultural shift that is required to give us faith in UK businesses and will they submit themselves to rigorous external scrutiny and engage with consumer bodies in a responsible manner?

Katja mentions “the great British brands we’re all proud of”; we have a perception that a large proportion of those have been outsourced to the orient or sold to foreign owners while continuing to trade under their old names. Perhaps the CBI does not represent those firms. But trust is a projection of recognising someone’s face [no one knows how this works better than the Chinese of course] and Bristish business needs to wash its face, and its hands, and come clean in the market place. Luckily the CBI has some members – not enough – who set a good example.

I would also like to identify some issues around compamies’ relationships with their suppliers that undermine our confidence. It all comes out on the internet these days so there is no point in subterfuge and exploitation. We have heard too many stories of firms who treat their suppliers like dirt on their shoes with destructive prices, unfair payment terms, unreasonable product placement demands, and threats of delisting. A lot of the UK population work for these suppliers, or have family and friends who do; it’s an insult to the ultimate customer to treat these mid-size companies and smaller enterprises with such disdain because if they fail then the whole country will fail.

Many of these “great British brands we’re all proud of” were built up by good men and women who had principles, a moral compass, a set of ethical values, and an overarching desire to serve us well; and it served them well – they prospered and got rich from which great benefaction flowed. I’d like to see a return to those values.

I am glad the CBI is holding this debate and hope it will be both ongoing and fruitful. But sadly for the CBI, every day [and today is no exception] one of its members disgraces the world of business with revelations that must make the CBI despair – yet we hear no words of condemnation or expulsion [for obvious reasons]. The change in attitude has to go right through to the heart of the business community and I hope the CBI will take this on board as well.

It would be nice to have some feedback from Katja, and even CBI members, as this Conversation rolls along.