What About the Little Man?

Our dryer was recently on the fritz and so we called a national repair company, A&E Factory Service, that Maytag recommended for servicing appliances. We ended up having two appointments, the first went quite well and the second not so much. The technician didn't show up until 3 hours after our 4 hour window, never called to notify us he would be late and never returned our message. When I called the company to talk with them about the situation I explained to them that due to my husband's loss of income for wasting 4 hours of his day, their technician's lack of communication and the inconvenience of the situation I felt I should not have to pay the remaining $35 of my bill. They explained to me that while they were sorry about the situation they did not reimburse for lost wages, time or inconvenience. My only recourse was to have the company file a complaint against the technician. Nick did find a link to Maytag's website and I left a complaint with the company. After all of that the technician was kind enough to waive the $35, leading me to question my actions. The situation led Nick and I to wonder, "what does the 'little man' do when trying to make their voice heard at a large corporation?". There are many local news investigation teams that go the extra mile to try and make the little man's voice heard and for some they do achieve some kind of compensation or apology. It does make you wonder, what happened to the company that, when they made a mistake or had an unhappy customer, would do whatever it took to make sure they kept their customer and righted their wrong? Whatever happened to "the customer is always right" (at least some of the time)? Somewhere along the way companies have lost the ability to say, "I'm sorry, we made a mistake". When you run into these situations it makes you realize how important it is to support small, local businesses. The "little man" companies are there to serve the "little man" and they know that their business is dependant on making sure their customers are satisfied and keep coming back. The next time you have a situation where you might have to work with a large corporation, maybe do a little research to find a local company that will thank you for your business and do whatever they can to make sure you come back.