Customer Reviews

Consumer Terrorism: How to Get Satisfaction When You're Being Ripped Off

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book that gives advice to consumers on how to take action against the bad service and lack of quality in our economy. It's a cry for consumers to stop being sheep and start being tigers. It is a how-to-guide for consumers to start to fight back. Overall, it was an interesting book that was easy to read and understand. The authors use good examples to get their points across to the consumer. Although one aspect regarding the examples used, too many become repetitive and boring.

Consumer Terrorism, by Frank Bruni and Elinor Burkett, is a book that gives advice to consumers on how to take action against the bad service and lack of quality in our economy. It's a cry for consumers to stop being sheep and start being tigers. American consumers have come to expect and accept sloppy service and poor quality as a norm. This isn't how it should be and action must be taken to correct this. Bad service and poor quality started during World War II, when there was a large increase in mass production resulting in mass markets of goods. This is the time when mom-and-pop stores started to go out of business and customer service was forever altered. Then the Depression hit and the consumer could no longer afford the goods. With the end of the Depression,consumers went crazy buying products and using services. This gave the manufacturers a big ego and lead them to not care about service, quality, and loyalty. Their only concern was the bottom line. The 1980's did not help this when profit became the only thing manufacturers cared about and were rewarded for. It took the Japanese entering our market to start the revolution. Their products were of higher quality, better service, and took the consumer dollars away from the domestic market. At the present time, our economy is in transition from manufacturing to service oriented. This hasn't been a good transition for customer service. The economy is forcing people to take jobs where they have to deal with people and lack the skills to do so properly. These jobs are usually lower paying which also results in lower motivation for the workers to strive to do better at their jobs. The book is a how-to-guide for consumer terrorism. It states that "70% of consumers never complain about faulty products or bad service" (p.7). Instead loyalty to stores and brands diminishes, if not altogether vanishes. The book uses many stories as examples of real life situations of consumer terrorism and how to best handle them. Chapter one begins the basic training and skims over the main topics discussed and taught in this book. Consumer terrorism is an art, not a science which can be approved upon with practice. There are nine basic laws covered throughout the book. They are: 1) Never shrug and never surrender - go for reimbursement and compensation, pursue it. 2) Strike quickly and forcefully - be bold, be confident. 3) Shoot for the stars - demand compensation, be ready to state a price, price should be reasonable. 4) Don't suffer fools - go straight to the person with power. 5) Wow'em with facts - use words like bait and switch and fraud. 6) Act like a librarian; file, file, file - keep receipts and credit card bills, keep records of complaints. 7) Find your opponents Achilles' heel and shoot a flaming arrow toward its center. 8) Refrain from outright nastiness; indulge in downright naughtiness. 9) Don't bother with the Better Business Bureau (p. 31-35). The chapter also goes over some terms that merchants use to deal with consumers who complain and the real meaning behind what is said. An example is when a merchant says "That's not our policy", and means "what you are suggesting will cost us money, so forget it" (p. 39). But as I said earlier, the nine laws are the focus along with stories used as example of each.

The book Consumer Terrorism: How to Get Satisfaction While You're Being Ripped Off by Frank Bruni is about the poor customer service given by many companies in the United States. The book gives good advice to consumers who desire better customer service and demand satisfaction. It is a bit harsh when it comes to some situations and goes beyond what most people would do to get satisfaction. I think that the authors could have been a little easier on some of the companies. I did like the fact that the authors pointed out companies that provide excellent customer service. Other bonuses in this book are: a guide to using the Internet to file complaints and a list of consumer protection departments across the nation. Although I enjoyed reading this book, I think that the authors could be a little more lenient. People are human and mistakes are made sometimes. All in all, it did offer good advice to those consumers who may need a little push to get good customer service.

I needed some concrete advice on how to handle complaint more effectively. This book didn't really tell me much more than to be obnoxious in demanding what you want. While the squeaky wheel gets the oil, why be obnoxious to a low level representative of the company? If you don't like how you are being treated, take your business and money elsewhere. This book just taught how to be a whiny, obnoxious customer, until the company caves in and you get what you want. How about some constructive advice instead?

I agree with others thoughts. I think the book goes overboard on expecting totaly 300% prfection ALL the time. It says that many people in service industries shouldn't be there because they are incompetant. I am a waitress, and I like my job, and I found that rather offensive. It isn't my fault when the kitchen screws up your meal, or that it tastes bad, or that it took too long to cook. I don't cook it!
This book has some good advice, but has a lot of stuff that you would ignore.