I have been struck for some time by how low the level of true “customer-centricism” is in the U.S. Having only visited and never for very long other countries, I don’t know if it is worse or better elsewhere, but it strikes me as pretty bad. Among the examples that bother practically everyone, I imagine, are the plastic-wrapped packages that can’t be opened without serious tools. These include those deliberately oversized (compared to their contents) plastic packs that are intended, I suppose, to prevent anyone from stealing the contents and pocketing them in the store, while making them too big to hide easily as a package.

I don’t object to the security required in self-service stores, especially given how much stuff I buy at Costco, but isn’t there some way to make packages in general openable by ordinary folks who keep saws, hatchets, and similar devices in their garages, rather than in the house? I also have a pet peeve about which I may be a minority, relative to the otherwise pure “blessing” of being able to access an incredible variety of printed material online, and print most of it when worth keeping.

Some website protect against printing their content, leading me to suspect there is something shady about their operations. Amazon.com does not enable its website visitors to print excerpts of books that it makes available for reading, but that is perhaps understandable, and it is otherwise a major source for me, about books that I do not buy, as well as for books, DVDs, etc. that I do buy. But it is relative to the way things have changed with respect to “printer-friendly” versions of content that bothers me most.

It has always been essential, for me or anyone wishing to limit the amount of paper and ink they waste making copies of online material to click on the “printer-friendly” version of most material, which is usually seriously encumbered as well as expanded with irrelevant content, such as advertising, which in some cases goes on for pages. Forbes magazine online articles, for example, seem to almost always have at least three pages of pap after the articles of interest, and do not normally offer a printer-friendly version, so waste a lot of my ink and paper, whenever I copy them, though fortunately the “print preview” capability enables me to avoid printing stuff that is totally irrelevant.

But where once the “printer-friendly” versions of content were nothing but printed words, and filled the whole page, thereby minimizing the waste of both paper and ink, now more and more retain one or more ads from their “printer unfriendly” original version, and often are printed so as to use only half or one-third of the page horizontally. Since I print literally hundreds of pages of such articles every day, this is definitely not “customer-centric” to me. And if there are others like me who do the same with their computer at work, is must be costing employers a lot as well.

In the UK, there has long been a concerted effort toward “buyer-centric” interaction and transaction processes, in sharp contrast to the “seller-centric” norm, where caveat emptor = buyer beware is the maxim written in stone. Thanks to the growth of “buyer agents” there, among other “concierge services” providers, and to government efforts to push buyer-centricity on sellers, there are chances for consumers there to control how much information they have to give to sellers, control how much information sellers bother them with, and force many sellers to operate as if they really are “buyer advocates”.

There is at least the notion of “customer advocacy” in the US, as well, but it is a dimension on which most sellers here would score poorly. There is a formal scoring mechanism, based on where a seller is perceived on a scale from “Acts in its own interests, even at the expense of its’ customers’ interests.” To “Acts in its customers’ interests even at the expense of its own”. Almost all sellers rated thus far fall well below the mid-point of this scale, where there would be a perceived balance between the two interests, and sellers rated toward the “customer-centric” end are rare, indeed. [[B. Doyle “Customer Advocacy 2006: How Consumers Rate Their Banks, Brokerages, and Insurers” Forrester Research Business View Trends May 22, 2006]

In theory, those engaged in enterprises that deal with the health of consumers should be a bit more customer-centric than those dealing with “mere” entertainment, transportation, etc. But the “healthy food” industry clearly has far to go. It seems to focus on using consumer health as a basis for stressing the only dimension of its products on which they could possibly be labeled as healthy, while ignoring the many other dimensions on which its products are unhealthy.

As employers, for example, seek to fill their cafeteria menus and snack vending machines with “healthy alternatives”, they will get little help from the snack industry. If there is any way they can mislead consumers about how healthy their snacks are, they seem to find it. Many “enrich” their snacks with vitamins, for example, or whole grains, omega-3 fatty acids, etc., while ignoring the generally poor nutritional balance they contain. Eating lower-fat foods that are loaded with calories, sugar, preservatives, etc. is unlikely to help a lot. Yet, rather than devise healthy foods that also are tasty enough to compete with junk, sellers often seem to prefer the “quick fix” of adding something that can be called healthy, with no FDA oversight, naturally, but with no significant change made to the original junk.

“Veggie chips” for example, may sound like they’ve got to be better than notoriously unhealthy potato chips, but they are usually nothing but potato chips dyed with vegetable-based coloring. Putting vitamins in sodas and flavored water will do few people much good if they encourage higher intake of sugar. There are some exceptions, fortunately – fortifying orange juice with calcium plus vitamin D makes sense, since vitamin D helps in the absorption of calcium, which, otherwise, might not do any good. Kraft Foods has labeled its truly healthy foods with a “Sensible Solutions” flag, so consumers can see immediately which products are high in nutrients, low in calories, salt, or sugar, for example.

But while employers, insurers, government agencies (lawmakers and regulators seem to much influenced by lobbyists) and consumer advocacy organizations are jumping on the bandwagon of population health management, as the one essential part of any solution to the “health care” and “uninsured” crises. But the food/drink industry is clearly not included. Most restaurants/fast food purveyors seem committed to their own interests well ahead of consumers’, with respect to labeling the content of foods, for example, as well as being among the least likely businesses to provide meaningful health benefits for their employees.

It can only be hoped, it seems to me, that competition will force more sellers into offering healthier alternatives to products and services that threaten consumers’ health. The good examples of some sellers will not be enough until and unless consumers demand and actually buy healthier alternatives. A recent US Department of Agriculture report sees hope in such competition, at least, though the Department has long been in the seller-centric camp in favoring the agricultural producers and sellers over consumers, but now sees marketing opportunities on the healthy side. [M. Cohn “Enriched Pitch” Jan 10, 2008]

It may be that as employers improve the healthiness of the food and snacks they buy for their employees, including food prepared for take-home by employees and used in feeding their families, that will be enough to move sellers toward the healthy, consumer-advocate and of the spectrum. Most sellers have demonstrated their general preference for fooling consumers to aiding them in pursuing good health, but if consumers and employers ally and align in efforts to improve health and reduce obesity in particular, something may come of it.