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November 1969 Electronics World
Table of Contents
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from
Electronics World, published May 1959
- December 1971. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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In the late 1960s, there
was evidently a brewing consumer revolt against shoddy merchandise, worthless warranties,
and sloppy service. Mac attributed this to a post-WWII seller's market
fueled by wartime shortages, black markets, and inflation. Many workers had
pent-up money to
spend on products not readily available during the war. Ensuing conflict eras like Korea
and Vietnam prioritized volume production and advertising over quality. Demand escalated prices. Customers, once kings in a competitive
free-enterprise system, became expendable amid abundant demand. By 1969, when this
story appeared in Electronics World magazine, massive complaints called
for
change, with proposed laws mandating enforceable warranties, federal consumer offices,
and ombudsmen systems. Stiff penalties were imposed by government for noncompliance.
Mac warned businesses to restore "King Customer" to the throne before boycotts and
resistance intensifyed. Today, just about anything can be returned for any reason.
Of course initial procurement costs are significantly higher because of it - but
we're not supposed to notice that.
Mac's Service Shop: The Customer Revolt
 By John T. Frye
Customers are finally threatening serious revolt against poor merchandise, worthless
guarantees, slovenly service.
"Mac," Barney said to his employer working beside him at the service bench, "have
you been following the hearings being held by the Senate Commerce subcommittee,
headed by Senator Moss of Utah, on the problems of shoddy merchandise and the shabby
treatment of customers?"
"I certainly have," Mac replied, "and I think this is another straw in the wind
of a gathering storm of consumer revolt. People are sick and tired of paying inflated
prices for things that are poorly made and do not function properly; of having to
write reams of letters and wait weeks for a manufacturer to make good on his warranty
- if he ever does; and having a repairman make two or three calls before he does
the job that should have been done on the first call. The consumers have been long
suffering, but now they are in a mood to do something about it, and all of us in
the manufacturing or construction or repair business would do well to pay attention
to what they are saying."
"It strikes me as a little odd that customers should have to take this kind of
action," Barney remarked. "What ever happened to that old saw about "The customer
is always right'? In the free-enterprise system, I thought competition was supposed
to make the customer king."
"It was and it pretty much did up until the Second World War," Mac explained,
"but then the demands of the war machine gobbled up raw materials and drastically
reduced the production of consumer goods. All at once if you wanted a new car, typewriter,
refrigerator, set of tires, slide rule, or anything else in short supply - and most
things were! - you had to stand in line, fill out forms, and often wait months to
get what you wanted. Unfortunately, there was another way: the black market. The
dealer who had scarce items to sell was a most important and popular person. He
didn't need to do any selling because there were many more customers than he had
goods. Instead of his having to please his customers, the would-be customers wooed
him with everything from flattery to outright bribery.
"It was the same way with service. Since so few new radios, refrigerators, washing
machines, or automobiles were being produced, the old ones had to be kept running.
Doing this was especially difficult because replacement parts, including vacuum
tubes, were also in short supply and were doled out very sparingly to discourage
hoarding. The service technician had as much work as he could possibly do, and more.
He fell into the habit of thinking that he was doing his customer a favor in repairing
his car or refrigerator or radio receiver, even though he was well paid for the
job."
"I can see how this happened, but I'd think everything would have returned to
normal after the war ended and factories started turning out consumer goods again,"
Barney commented.
"Well, it didn't work out that way," Mac said. "The thing that kept the sellers
in the saddle was a booming inflation. Defense-plant workers made good wages during
the war, with lots of overtime, and there was not much to spend it on while the
war lasted. When the war was over and goods started appearing on the market, these
well-heeled consumers were bidding against each other for these goods. Price was
not much of an object, and there was still more demand than goods. Then along came
the Korean War and after that the involvement in Vietnam to keep things off balance.
"The upshot of all this is that we have had more than a quarter of a century
of a seller's market in this country. Anyone who has something to market, be that
a durable item or a service, has little trouble in selling it. There are so many
customers that little value is placed on the good will of the individual customer.
If one is lost, there are plenty more to take his place. Competition, instead of
concentrating on quality, takes the form of seeing who can turn out the most marketable
items in the least amount of time, for in the back of the manufacturers' minds is
the urgent conviction that they had better make hay while the sun shines because
this is too good to last forever. Money spent on extravagant advertising pays off
better than money spent on quality control, for if you just get the item into the
hands of a dealer someone will buy it. Barnum was a wise old bird, and didn't he
say, 'There's a sucker born every minute'?"
"Yeah, and labor has capitalized on his urgency," Barney chimed in. "They have
demanded more and more wages for turning out the products and for building the factories
in which to make them. Manufacturers have acceded to these demands with very little
real resistance because they simply tacked the extra cost onto the selling price
of their products. This, of course, fans the flames of inflation even higher."
"All true," Mac agreed, "but there are many signs these halcyon days for the
sellers are about over. The complaint files of that Senate subcommittee you mentioned
are becoming the most massive in Washington. A UPI story says people seem to be
complaining to their congressmen more about shoddy merchandise than about taxes,
the draft, ABM, or even the war in Vietnam. The subcommittee staff has drafted a
bill on consumer warranty protection which is being considered. The thinking is
clear and to the point: the way to force manufacturers to improve quality is to
make it costly to produce shoddy products; and the way to make it costly is to demand
clear and meaningful warranties backed by laws that say if a manufacturer guarantees
his product and if it doesn't work as it is supposed to, he must repair or replace
it."
"But the little guy can't afford to go to law to force a manufacturer to honor
his warranty, especially on a low-cost item," Barney objected. "The subcommittee
realizes that, and they're exploring legislation to establish a federal consumer
counsel office and an industry-wide system of ombudsmen to arbitrate consumer complaints.
A consumer who felt he was getting the run-around from a manufacturer could either
go to court or carry his complaint to one of these impartial arbitrators.
If the ombudsman decided the complaint had merit, the manufacturer would have
to give the consumer satisfaction. An ombudsman system along these lines is already
in operation in the dry-cleaning industry of New York City, where Bess Myerson Grant,
Commissioner of City Consumer Affairs warns: "Prime consumer difficulties arise
from the sellers taking unfair advantage of the buyer's lack of expertise ... the
buyer will always be at the mercy of the seller. The answer: Wise up! Assert your
rights!'"
"Dade County, Florida, has a kind of ombudsman system of its own," Barney said.
"The Trade Standards Division maintains a 'consumer hot line' for the filing of
complaints by consumers who feel they have been gypped and want something done about
it. That red telephone on the division's desk is backed by what is called the toughest
consumer protection code in the nation, a 28-page ordinance written into the county's
municipal statutes. It has real teeth. Violators may be fined up to $500 and jailed
for 60 days. In the first ten months of operation, more than 4000 complaints have
been filed via the hot line. Oddly enough, only seventeen court cases have been
filed against alleged violators, but hundreds of other grievances have been solved
by a quick phone call. Very few gyp artists want to tangle with that tough law."
"Growing consumer anger is making itself felt in both high and low places," Mac
agreed. "You remember a couple of months ago the President ordered government construction
cut by 75% as an anti-inflation measure, and he made it clear that excessive demands
by many of those in the building trades had much to do with his decision to issue
the order.
"A single experience of my own recently," he went on, "helps me understand the
growing impatience of consumers. When the wife was sick and we had to employ a housekeeper
for a couple of months, she clobbered our faithful old coffee maker by repeatedly
pulling the cord from the appliance instead of from the wall socket as should be
done. The resulting arcing heated the appliance contact prongs and destroyed the
block on which they were mounted. But nobody was going to tell that housekeeper
how to run a kitchen, even if he was supposed to be a hotshot electronics man!
"I bought a new coffee maker from the dealer for one of the most respected names
in the appliance business - according to the advertising. After we had used this
a few days, the wife pointed out a spot about the size of a half-dollar on the inside
that had never been plated. I suppose a spot of grease or something similar had
prevented the plating from sticking to the raw brass. When I showed this to the
dealer, he admitted it was a defect but said he would have to send it to the repair
depot at Indianapolis. After three weeks I called to ask about my coffee pot. The
dealer said Indianapolis was not equipped for plating, and the appliance had been
forwarded to a factory on the East Coast. Finally, many weeks later, the dealer
called to say my coffee maker was back. But actually it wasn't. It had been replaced
with a new unit. Now why couldn't the dealer have been authorized to make this exchange
in the first place and return the defective unit to the factory? That way the company
would have retained my good will. Now I'll never buy another product manufactured
by that company because I don't like the way they handle their warranty."
"Did you drink tea all this while?" Barney asked curiously.
"Nope. I got busy and made a whole new terminal block for the old faithful,"
Mac said; "and it still, after fifteen years of use, makes better coffee than the
new job."
"We come right back to the fact that what is basically wrong is that the manufacturer
or the service person does not really care much what an individual customer thinks
of his product or his work," Barney suggested. "There are too many customers with
money burning their pockets to worry about the ill will of a few. Most people in
manufacturing or doing service work today have no memory of how things were back
in the '30's when I am told a customer was an important someone whose good will
was to be won and retained at all costs."
"You were told right," Mac said, "and I'm afraid those days are coming back faster
than many manufacturers, professional people, or service technicians realize. More
and more people are beginning to feel they are being pushed around and exploited.
They resent it and are starting to demand an end to this sort of thing. No longer
do they listen to some intellectuals who say inflation is really good for the economy,
that we can continue leapfrogging wages and living costs without concern, and that
it really isn't necessary to balance the national budget. We might do well to remember
the warning of Alfred North Whitehead, the British scholar: 'Wait for the back streets;
when they move, the intellectuals are swept aside.' When we see the boycotts against
soaring food prices, the threats to withhold taxes, and the stiffening resistance
of consumers toward shoddy merchandise and service, there can be little doubt the
back streets are starting to move. Now is a fine time for every business man to
put King Customer back on his throne where he belongs!"
Mac's Radio Service Shop Episodes on RF Cafe
This series of instructive
technodrama™
stories was the brainchild of none other than John T. Frye, creator of the
Carl and Jerry series that ran in
Popular Electronics for many years. "Mac's Radio Service Shop" began life
in April 1948 in Radio News
magazine (which later became Radio & Television News, then
Electronics
World), and changed its name to simply "Mac's Service Shop" until the final
episode was published in a 1977
Popular Electronics magazine. "Mac" is electronics repair shop owner Mac
McGregor, and Barney Jameson his his eager, if not somewhat naive, technician assistant.
"Lessons" are taught in story format with dialogs between Mac and Barney. There
are 131 stories as of January 2026.
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