28 Dec 2016, 7:48 pm
#513
(28 Dec 2016, 7:41 pm)S813 FVK Do we not think that the complaining is down to people failing to understand how businesses work? It is very easy to shoot down a business for doing something that goes against the customer without understanding why the business has made the decision that it has made.
All businesses exist to provide a product/service to the people in their target market. If this product/service does not appeal to the people that it is aimed at, it will not make a profit and will, therefore, be very difficult to justify its continuation. If they continued to provide the service at a loss, the business would simply struggle to survive, affecting a much larger group of people. After all, it is very rare for Go North East to remove a service and not to give customers an alternative method of getting to their destination, such as the recent extension of the 202 from Peterlee to Station Town replacing service X7 on that section of the route.
But it is irrelevant if the customer understands the business behind it or not. There seems to quite often be the misconception that the consumer cares about how a company achieves it's margins, how it justifies it mark up pricing or what not. It is not their concern, and quite frankly most of them will not care. It is up to a business to remain competitive but still provide a product or service to meet the customer's expectations at a price where they feel value. Otherwise, and quite simply, they'll go elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the majority of bus operators' customers' do not have that choice, because competition is so scarce. They find that the only alternative is often to learn to drive/take the car.
