Putting the customer first?

First it was Ryanair discovering that people hate their company after the public voted them 100th out of, yes, 100 rubbish companies. Michael O'Leary worked out - all by himself - that Ryanair's petty money-making puts people off travelling with them: 'O look, this bag is 5cms too wide to be hand luggage - that'll be 20 Euros, thank you!'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24177834

Then the gas and electricity companies started hiking their prices up. British Gas went onto Twitter to 'explain' the rise and their PR people were a wee bit surprised to find customers replying with:

<<Hi Bert, which items of furniture do you, in your humble opinion, think people should burn first this winter?>> and

<<Can I go back to paper bills, please, or can you send me something else that will burn?>> and 

Now it's Tesco finding out - again to their surprise - that their sales methods are wasteful. For some reason, they've latched on to the waste involved in the sale of salad. I promise them, that's the least of it. Let me quote from a blog entry I posted in February this year: 

<<...supermarkets are not geared up for dealing with single person households, despite the fact that millions of us now live alone. And I don't just mean the elderly. How about the newly divorced and separated and those between relationships or those just pissed off with relationships who decide to maintain their independence?

I always end up buying too much in the supermarket because portions only come 'family-sized' and I have to rely on my family to come and take stuff away. This month I passed on to my nephew and his wife a tray of chicken joints, a packet of crackers, tortilla chips, crisps and a jar of pour over sauce. These are called bogofs in the supermarket - buy one get one free - often stuff near its sell-by date. None of these are any use to me unless I can freeze them and most I can't.>>

No one can solve this problem of waste except the supermarkets themselves. And it's a bit rich Tesco blaming their suppliers. If Tesco decide they want food supplied in smaller quantities, they'll get it. Mind you, the way things go with businesses these days, the chances are there will be a charge and you and I will be paying it.