This is partially inspired by this discussion on slashdot about the difficulties in cancelling accounts. It got me to thinking of other occasions where companies shoot themselves in the foot in their attempts to make money.

One of the more blatant examples I can think of happened a couple of months ago. My wife and were in a shopping center, and decided to get some lunch, so we walked around, to find a decent-looking restaurant. We saw one which looked good, but thought we would go there later. As we were walking past it, a waiter stepped in front of us, and asked us if we wanted to come in. We said no, and after continuing a couple of steps, another pesone, from the same restaurant tried to get us into it. We ended up going elsewhere for lunch.

Another aspect of this is adverts which insult my intelligence, or are just plain annoying… there are a couple of companies that I refuse to deal with, purely because they have annoying adverts.

I think that in the modern world, a company needs to try very hard not to care off their customers… Most of the instances where the companies money-making scheme backfires seem to happen when they do not see their customers as human beings, and fail to respect their wishes.

Technorati Tags: slashdot, advertising, business practices, marketing, sales