[Tfug] Time to boycott Office Depot?

[Tim Colson]

Leo -

  Call me naive, but I believe the majority of people aren't nefarious.
Oh, they might do things I personally don't like or that I can't see the
logic in doing. But in this case, I can imagine a point of view that
puts OD simply trying to do something they think will benefit their
customers. :-)

Customer comes to OD. 
Buys a computer. Buys SW/HW accessories.
Goes home and SW/HW thingy doesn't work.
Unhappy, maybe even irate, Customer goes back to OD to complain.

At this point, OD can tell them "we don't support this SW, you have to
call Foo Inc or MS Inc."... but the customer will still be unhappy with
OD for selling them the SW/HW. Heck, they will probably be upset because
the opened SW package can't even be returned! 

Who does the customer blame? MS? Foo Inc? 
Nope - they blame Office Depot for selling them the product, so OD
Customer Satisfaction scores drops.

Office Depot doesn't want unhappy customers - because they tend to stop
buying stuff. ;-)

So an OD Marketing dude says, "Hey, got an idea. Since our staff will
never be able judge Foo Inc's SW/HW compatability, howabout we only sell
stuff that is certified to work with the computers we sell? And since we
only sell MS computers, it should be easy to just sell MS certified
stuff. Sure, we may lose revenue not selling uncertified products, but
we can probably increase our customer sat rating because most things
should 'just work' for the customer."
---

I am not saying this IS the situation, just a simple potential scenario
with a goal of creating more happy customers, which certainly isn't
nefarious. 

Will it work or will OD leave the SW/Computer biz because sales drop
off? 
Only time will tell.

Cheers,
Timo :-)