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Subject:Re: Grammar - The Gotcha Microsoft Gives From:mattgras -at- comcast -dot- net To:Kevin McLauchlan <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> Date:Thu, 8 Sep 2011 14:24:51 +0000 (UTC)
I find the words "user," "customer," and "consumer" (especially consumer) alarming: why do we all, including media, seem to increasingly regard P E O P L E as entites in relationship with products?
(I know -- outside the scope of this discussion....)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin McLauchlan" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
To: "William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, September 8, 2011 7:07:26 AM
Subject: RE: Grammar - The Gotcha Microsoft Gives
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Sherman
>
> You should see some of what comes through in these documents. ÂI don't
> like
> "the user" when it is really "the customer". Didn't "user" go out after
> Tron
> 29 years ago? Maybe this is why customer service is such a
> [sarcasm]wonderful[/sarcasm] experience, is that many in these service
> desks
> read these types of guides and think of them as "users" rather than
> "customers" who deserve respect for buying the product in the first
> place.
>
Dunno about you, but we sell to giant corporations, governments, etc.
Those are our customers.
The actual users of our products are people (way down the corporate/organizational food chain) employed by them, and are reliably not the people who made the purchasing decisions or the people who cut the checks (cheques).
Â-k
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