“If you can't give BETTER than online service, why should anyone care whether you survive or not?”
With that summation, an anonymous comment took to task an errant assumption in last week’s column, that supporting locally owned businesses is inherently better for the consumer.
The column is online if you missed it, but it dealt with a woman changing banks after 44 years because she felt the institution no longer cared about her. I placed the bulk of the blame on corporate greed and suggested we would benefit from dealing with local mom-and-pops instead of national chain stores.
The writer, who posted a comment to the column online (join the conversation at www.ATexasVoice.com by clicking on the link to “That’s our policy”), said he, too, lamented banks of old that “did business with a handshake.”
He quickly contributed that they did seem to be more careful about whose hand they shook, a clear reference to bank bailouts of late. Today, though, he said banks are “simply terminals on a mainframe.”
Why local?
Addressing the issue of buying locally, the writer presented his own story of doing just that, choosing to pay more for a recliner at a local store rather than support a chain. He seemed happy with his purchase, but he also requested something else from the store. He was looking for a specific type of pillow and, after a couple of days, received word from a store employee the product he wanted did not exist.
“A month or so later,” he wrote, “I was on Amazon.com and fed the information to their search engine, and two of the pillows were delivered free of shipping charges to me a few days later.
“I don't mind paying more to ‘keep business local’ and ‘help the local economy,’ but I guess I believe that those extra dollars should buy more than a cursory interest in my business. When I can get BETTER service from a Washington state store, shouldn't I patronize it?”
The writer is correct. Just because someone opens a local answer to a chain store does not mean he or she deserves our blind support. The business still must take care of customers.
Fortunately for local business owners, such a goal should be reachable. If the owner is in the store and interacting with customers – assuming the owner is setting a good example – employees are likely to follow the lead or face the ire of the boss.
Running a business is never easy, but giving customers what they want and need is a more accessible objective when an owner sees those customers ... and his employees ... every day.
So, yes, dear reader, you and I should remind local businesses we wish to support them and that they must earn our loyalty.
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