[nfbwatlk] FW: [Wcb-l] Selling Pictureds of Food?

[Alco Canfield]

-----Original Message-----
From: Deb Lewis <deb.cook at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 4:51 PM
To: Wcb-l at wcbinfo.org
Subject: [Wcb-l] Selling Pictureds of Food?

I've been a good customer of Schwans for about a year now. I think I won't be doing business with them anymore though. I received the following email which I'm quoting part of below, and then I'll describe my experience. I think people with disabilities in general and blind people in particular should be interested in this kind of thing.
Here's the relevant part of what I received:
 
Schwan's Home Service would like to extend an invitation to you to join our Customer Advisory Group.  As a participant you will provide valuable information used to make important business decisions and directly impact the products and services available to all of Schwan’s customers.
   
Members will provide opinions about once a month on a variety of topics such as new product ideas, improving existing products and how to better serve you as a Schwan’s customer.  Most of the research will be conducted via the internet.
In appreciation of your participation, you will receive valuable coupons towards money off your SCHWAN’S® product purchases.  Only a select number of customers have been invited to join and Schwan’s Home Service would very much appreciate your participation. Please act quickly as space is limited. To find out more about the Advisory Group, click http://www.schwanspanel.com/index.cfm?action=Main.home
 
OK. I've used a lot of their products and have opinions. So I read about the surveys and the valuable coupons and began to sign up. I answered some profile questions and then they asked me if I could see a picture they were showing me. I indicated I could not. I then got a statement that said if I could not see the product picture I could not participate in the surveys and could not serve on the Customer Advisory Panel. I thought I'd copied the statement to the clipboard but somehow did not and it won't let me take the survey again to capture that. But the bottom-line is that because I could not  see a flash movie picture, my opinion about new products and services is not useful  to Schwans. So I guess my dollars are not either. 
 
I'm going to do what I can to make sure that as many people who could be impacted learn about this. It's apparently the only way we as blind people can vote on the products and services offered by this particular company.
 
I'd be interested in the experiences of anyone else who has been invited to participate in this process. 
 
I'm not on lots of email lists so you're welcome to share this with anyone you think might be interested. I will begin by writing to the firm that manages the Customer Service Panel and to Schwans. It would be helpful if Schwans customers who are blind let the corporate office know that what we buy is not based on pictures in the catalog. 
 
Deb
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