Letter of the Day - A lesson in competition

THE EDITOR, Sir:

THE COMPETITIVE "war" between the giant Cable & Wireless and newcomer Digicel should be a vivid indication to all consumers of the value of competition, and the power that we all as consumers have.

In its monopoly role, C&W had no care about its customers. The cellular service was bad, but so what? We had no alternative. Some operators spoke to us as though the company could not operate without them, not realising that they could easily be replaced by machines, which, although inanimate, appeared to be more customer-friendly. With the coming of Digicel, all of that has changed. The service is better, the operators are courteous, the charges in many instances are lower.

This should be a wake-up call to all businesses in Jamaica that, given a choice, consumers will support those which genuinely value their patronage, and which will offer real customer service, not just glitsy slogans churned out by their public relations departments or advertising agencies.

An ad that I heard on radio yesterday reminded me that many businesses have still not learnt the lesson. It was a JPSCo ad, advising consumers that, if they wished to know when power cuts would affect them, all they had to do was to check the company's website at www.jpsco.com for the information.

It was a callous ad, which displayed quite clearly the contempt in which the JPSCo holds its customers. What percentage of its customers have access to a computer, let alone to the Internet? Wouldn't it have been more "customer friendly" for the JPSCo to establish a toll-free telephone line which most customers could access, or better yet, advertise the outages in the Press? But once again, a monopoly, smugly secure in the knowledge that there is no competition to hurt them, whatever they do and however they treat their customers.

The consumers of Jamaica, and we are all in some way or other consumers, must not let the C&W/Digicel lesson go unnoticed. No matter how large a business is, be it a bank, an insurance company or a store, we must let the heads of these businesses know that we will not tolerate shoddy treatment; that we will not put up with rude telephone operators and surly attendants; that in most cases we have a choice - the most powerful weapon of the consumer - and we will not hesitate to use it on every occasion that we have to.

I am, etc.,

PHILIP AZAR

5 Marescaux Road

Kingston 5

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