Comments on: Why we won’t be reviewing any more Divine chocolate…

By: Cliff Stanford

Cliff Stanford — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:20:28 +0000

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-02-01/ says it all, I think!

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:34:51 +0000

I think I’d be willing to forgive Divine this, if only their chocolate actually tasted good …

I pity the poor farmers who put all that effort into producing beans that go into a bar that’s about as tasty the packaging in comes in.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:37:02 +0000

Steven your like a dog chasing its own tail

By: Steven Lilley

Steven Lilley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:48:42 +0000

cybele, thanks for the lengthy reply.
To answer your question. That depends. If the company is small then yes, I suppose so, if the bad experience was from the owner.
In a larger company, then no, there is an increased chance that one of the many employees is bad/has had a bad day/makes a mistake.

I suppose my question in response might be along the lines of “Do you stop patronizing every company who is employing someone who has made a mistake?” though I suppose I could also ask “Have you ever made a mistake at work and would you hope that as a result of that all of your customers would stop patronizing you/your company/your employer?”

By: cybele

cybele — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:36:13 +0000

Steven – I have made no judgment on this issue regarding Divine. I have no dog in this fight.

I don’t tolerate sock puppets on my own site and I loathe seeing other bloggers playing host to them. As I said before, that doesn’t make the products bad but it does call to suspect the entire organization if they tolerate this sort behavior when they are called on it. In this case Divine has been very responsive. (I also got an email because of my participation in this conversation from their USA operations.) Other companies that I’ve dealt with don’t seem to care and that makes me think that they think that other breaches are also acceptable.

My question to you is this, are the actions of an employee of a company enough to keep you from patronizing that company? I’d say that many of us would say yes in certain circumstances. In this case it was more than one staff member (Dom & Simon had issues with earlier interactions.)

By: Steven Lilley

Steven Lilley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:26:40 +0000

cybele. So, are the ethics of the company the same as the ethics of an individual who works for them?

By: cybele

cybele — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:18:30 +0000

Steven – I find it odd that you’re belittling the subject of the conversation, yet you keep having it. Ethics are ethics.

And yes, bloggers do have an influence on candy purchases. Not much else, but we do have that.

By: Steven Lilley

Steven Lilley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:12:50 +0000

Thanks cybele. Yeah, not boycott, “boycott of reviews or something”. thanks :-)
The thought of trying to protect anything that invites public opinion from “being taken advantage of” amuses me. I mean, I could say “wow, orangey chocolate is yummy” in one of the threads. Are you suggesting that readers of this blog would take that as fact and rush out and buy it? Oh the power ;-)

By: Steven Lilley

Steven Lilley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:03:31 +0000

Justin,
apologies, not meant to be inflammatory, but when I stop and consider the meaning I wanted to express then it’s about right. As I read it someone at Divine acted childishly, Dom spotted it and called them. Nice one Dom. Divine haven’t tried to hide anything; Charlotte responded on here and has dealt with it. Lesson learned and, IMHO, the end of it. Peace.

By: cybele

cybele — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:42:24 +0000

Steven, you said, “The point I wanted to make was that it seems somewhat harsh to boycott Divine based on the actions of one person.”

You’ve mistaken what Dom said. He said that he won’t be REVIEWING any other Divine products. Not that the product should be boycott or that the products don’t have merit, but that his blog and reviewers will not be taken advantage of.