The weariness of the client
Résumé
Critics of market practices in public utilities have mainly focussed on collateral casualties such as disconnection of the poorest or unequal access for rural areas. This proposal is focussed on the hard core of open market: the client’s choice. Do people really want to choose?
First, we shall display practical difficulties associated with the consumer choice in the specific case of public utilities empirically and the correlated dissatisfaction of many clients. The analysis will deal with the issues of gas, electricity and telecommunication sectors in France (recently open to client’s choice) and will be based on available public data (ombudsmen’s reports, justice trials, surveys on trust in enterprises).
Second, at a more theoretical level, we shall discuss the client experience, when he/she is submitted to an injunction of choice, with the (grounded) impression that the rules are not fair. We will in particular draw on Alain Ehrenberg’s research on the individual performance injunction’s impact on psychology to put forward the hypothesis of « weariness of the client » of public utilities.