Meaningful careers are becoming more and more limited. Going forward you will need to create your own career. For many, the idea of becoming their own boss is exciting, while for others it is an intimidating thought and then for others they won’t want the responsibility, which category do you fall into?
Large companies providing a safe home like a parent for a child will become more and more extinct. They will continually expend people for enhancing the bottom line. The incentive for companies to take care of their employees until they are ready to retire, is a thing of the past. Everything is about lowering costs, bringing on automation, and carrying as few obligations as possible. A view towards social obligation and being a good citizen has lost it’s value for a bottom-line oriented only company. To these companies a customer is seen as a means to an end, profit! This leaves in our society a void that someone with an entrepreneur mindset will figure out how to fill, and develop a successful business along the way.
As I write this my wife, Gail, and I are in Toulouse, France. We are staying with Gail’s daughter and husband. Suzy and her husband Jean-Francois have invited us into their home for the duration of French confinement due to the coronavirus, COVID-19.
Suzy is one that enjoys the quality of local businesses for bread, meats, fruit & vegetables, hair dresser, specialty clothing shops, etc. She says that when the nonessential businesses reopen after lockdown, she will pay them beyond what they are asking for their products and services to help make sure they stay around. Suzy is one who values personal attention and high quality service. What room we have in our society today for high quality products and services. Some people are looking for the cheapest price but not all of us are. Some of us truly appreciate, and are willing to pay for, outstanding and exemplary services.
On the other hand, Gail and I had purchased our air travel ticket for a French 3-month visit back in December 2019. We arrived In France on January 10, 2020 for a lengthy visit with family and some tourist activities around Southwest France. In the middle of March we were hit with COVID-19 and a national lockdown. British Airways started cancelling our flights and changing them to illogical new schedules. For an example a reschedule from Toulouse to London arrived 3 hours after our USA flight was to leave Heathrow. BA customer service was impossible to reach by phone and the message online said you must phone if you don’t accept the changes to your flight. This went on and on multiple times and became more and more illogical with yet further changes even more disconnected and more illogical. The only remedy available to me was to cancel and accept a travel voucher for travel we will need to take before January 2021, not likely. So really and unethically, British Airways have hoodwinked us out of our money through no fault of ours but rather to selfishly protect their own corporate bottom line. I could go on about this incident in much more detail but I suspect my point has been made. Through cost reduction decisions, avoidance of handling the customer’s problem, and automation, BA failed miserably.
What an opportunity for someone to step in the void and run an airline that made the customer king. What product or service could you offer your community that could make pleasing customers the goal? Could it be a small baked-good product delivered fresh and tasty. Could it be a service to help older people with understanding new technology, could it be a plumber that honors his word?
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