How Do You Decide When to Take a Stand with Your Money? | brokeGIRLrich
Let me tell you two stories.
The first story is about a 21 year old girl working in a theater down the shore. One particularly long week, after working till after midnight every day, she would stop for dinner on her way home around 2 or 3 in the morning at Wawa. One night she decided she just couldn’t eat another Wawa sub and stopped at McDonald’s 24 hour drive through.
There were two cars in front of her. It was the middle of the night. How long could it take?
It took more than an hour. At some point, she should’ve just left. Shortly after 30 minutes, the first car finally moved on. When she finally got to the window to order a cheeseburger and fries, the woman at the window told her they didn’t have fries. She might have lost it a little bit. The woman at the window was rude as heck to her so the girl said, “forget it! I will never eat at McDonald’s again.”
And because of that crappy night of service, she never did.
Here’s another story. Same girl.
She orders the most perfect Christmas present ever for her mother off Groupon. The company goes bankrupt and never delivers the goods. Despite this, Groupon refuses to refund her the money for the Groupon. This company and this particular Groupon are so ridiculous and piss off so many people, there’s a class action suit against them. The girl eventually gets her money back via the class action suit.
The girl swears she’ll never use Groupon again.
Since that time she’s purchased Groupons for a New Orleans tour, Starbucks, a few shows, post-it notes, ziplining, a massage and a haircut.
Occasionally there are weird restrictions that make the Groupon difficult to use or cost her more than anticipated.
She continues to use this product despite how pissed off it makes her sometimes.
Spoiler – the girl is me.
And I’ve been pondering how I decide when to take a stand with my money. The McDonald’s thing might not seem like a big deal (though if memory serves, their fries were the bomb.com) and surely McDonald’s doesn’t care about losing one customer because of unbelievably bad service, but I care about being treated like that.
I could just live with the idea that McDonald’s is full of jerks and keep eating there. The same way I know Groupon is sometimes a little shady, but the deals are good so I keep going.
On a bigger scale, there’s a ton of people who invest choosing things like socially conscious mutual funds. Or they’ll choose not to support companies that support causes that offend them.
Come to think of it, that’s a far more admirable reason to boycott a company that crappy service, but I am who I am.
I think sometimes I forget that I actually do have a lot of power as a consumer. Short of some monopolies, there are few reasons you have to buy anything from anyone.
On that note, maybe I’ll check out Groupon for a good deal at Arby’s or Burger King.
I have not shopped at Wal Mart for 15 years and have not used Amazon for nearly 3.
Personally, I don’t think I would have made my ban on McDonald’s a lifetime ban for that circumstance. I don’t think what happened is what you would have experienced at most other McDonald’s. Plus, they are franchised whereas Groupon really isn’t. So, Groupon, their refusal to do the right thing wasn’t just a slice of the company or an offshoot. It was front and center Groupon itself. Whereas, McDonald’s, you could argue, the experience you had was on the fringe.
What I’m trying to say is that if it were me, I probably would have given Groupon the lifetime ban and gone back to any other McDonald’s at some point in the future and enjoyed some of their delicious fries.
Money Beagle recently posted…The Psychology of Sales
Prior to Toys R Us going out of business, I refused to shop there because they did not pay their employees very well and gave them no discount at all and Toys R Us did not really support the communities they did business in.
I know all this because I take the time to ask these questions and do my research before I spend my hard earned money.
I want to support businesses that treat their employees and the community well. I try to shop local, small business as much as I can. That is vitally important to keep the community thriving.
It takes a lot more money to acquire a customer than to keep an existing customer, so companies should really focus on the customer experience. I don’t know that I have any companies I won’t do business with anymore, but I can understand why you’d want to draw the line.
Gary @ Super Saving Tips recently posted…Can You Ever Really Beat the System?
We didn’t like a store’s political views so we said we would stop shopping there. Well then we needed to rent that thing that no one else had but them. So we were forced into it…but no more!
Vickie@Vickie’s Kitchen and Garden recently posted…Grocery Shopping Total for This Week 9/29/18!
I think the emotional imprint of a really bad experience tends to sway me away from using certain brands. On the flip side, there are some brands that I continue to use because I can get a good deal (like you said with Groupon), and I continue to use them knowing I’m getting a good deal but can expect sub-par service. For me, it depends on how bad the experience is. I also tend to write companies when I’ve had a horrible experience, and their response helps me determine whether I’ll use them again. Now, as a blogger I feel like we have more power to change the system because brands that don’t treat us well will get a bad rap from us!
Tawnya recently posted…3 Years in and I’ve Already Saved Time and Money off My Mortgage
I’m a little crazier, so such mistakes can really make me NEVER use that provider again. In my country we had a little ruckus with a company selling fish. They sell herring, but named it Salmon, since it was treated with all kinds of chemicals to make it orange. Of course, in a small lettering, they to list the ingredients: 100% herring, but the huge typing says Salmon. We make a big fuss on Facebook, since they advertised that shit, one of their representatives tried to fool us more in the comments, as if we were idiots, and I got so angry that I decided to never buy ANY of their merchandise anymore and also told my friends not to. When I see Ocean Fish on anything, I just ignore 😀
Ugh, that would make me pretty angry too. Stupid, shady companies.
People vote with their wallets every moment of every day. That’s why some businesses boom and some go bust. I’ve had bad service in LOADS of places that have later disappeared – rude sales people, looooooong waits for a coffee, refusal to deal with legitimate complaints. I bet the owners still don’t know why they couldn’t make it work! I’m the kind of person who will find a manager and ask them to fix the problem first, as well. If they still manage to piss me off, well why would I spend money there again???