I think they're trying but failing, personally, because I am seeing them try different things online, like the waiting room - it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to implement something like that and if they don't have the best web programers and stuff on it, yep…problems.
You would think a huge company like Estee Lauder would know how to handle this stuff, but wow, you'd be surprised at how backwards some companies are and EL is still owned and run by a family at the top. That gets very backwards and not modern. No wonder they're not handling all of this so well. They need to keep Customer Service waaaaay more informed too - SO MANY companies have no clue at how important that is until it jumps up and bites them on the butt. The supply issues are thorny too, because it seems like a simple logical thing to make much more stock and get much more money. It's trickier, though, when you have many companies under one umbrella, where the gains on one is supporting the losses of another. We can't exactly blame the original MAC founders, who really did need to sell their business when they did, as there was AIDS tragedy involved. Why is corporate culture so foolish and short sighted about the companies they buy? Ugh - no easy answer for that, but EL's been a bit better keeping the MAC product true to its origins in ways many corporate buy-outs don't even come close to - but those horror stories are not often in the beauty industry the way they are in some others, like publishing for example.
Anyways, I just felt like jumping in with a glass half full sort of comment - didn't mean to direct it at you specifically, but I liked your comment and felt it really summed up what a lot of people are feeling so it seemed like the best one to quote to reply from! I love these sorts of intellectual back and forths!
