Atlas Editions get weirder

My recent article on Atlas Editions and their strange business practices has proved popular and readers generally agree it accurately reflects the truth, but far from persuading them to buck their ideas up, in recent weeks they actually seem to have defied all expectations and got even worse, if such a thing is possible! Instead of learning from criticism like most other companies, they're simply burying their heads in the sand, censoring complaints and pretending all is well, which is a truly bizarre mentality.

Most of the visitor comments on the official Atlas Facebook page were negative in nature but with genuine complaints. The majority of companies would see this as a matter of grave concern, but not Atlas: rather than addressing the issues, their solution was to delete every post and implement a review system for new posts that requires them to be approved by the company before they appear on the page, a convenient way to filter out any and all criticism. Anecdotal evidence suggests it is now nearly impossible for customers to express their displeasure to the company: they no longer accept Facebook posts, most phone calls are met with a recorded message and emails either go unanswered or elicit an automated response. I'm not sure what they hope to achieve with this, other than making their ever-shrinking customer base even angrier.

Atlas's management really do need to sit down and take a good hard look at themselves and their business, as it seems everyone except those within the company can see how things are rotten to the core. If the effort spent on censoring complaints was instead spent on actually resolving the issues encountered by the customers, they could make a vast improvement, but they honestly appear to think themselves infallible and refuse to accept there is anything wrong with the way they do business. In this modern age where complaints can immediately be made public on social media, companies cannot afford to behave in this way. The customer is king and hard-earned reputations can be destroyed in moments, so customer care is absolutely vital and issues must be addressed promptly, something that doesn't seem to have occurred to Atlas.

The unofficial Atlas Collectors group on Facebook does at least still exist as a medium for customers to vent their anger. The group moderators are aware of the problems and unlike Atlas themselves will permit honest free speech, but it has no connection with the Atlas company and they have unsurprisingly shown no interest whatsoever in it, so nothing will get done via this route. Although I have recently received a new Greatest Show on Earth model, nothing from the World of Stobart collection has arrived for several months, and customers have been told these models are out of stock. How could that happen? More than any other model producer, Atlas should be able to assess demand accurately as they should know exactly how many customers are subscribed to each collection at a given time, so their stock control leaves much to be desired too but attempts to complain about it fall on deaf ears.  

It is a real shame that Atlas choose to behave in this way as there is a lot of merit in their business model and good money could be made by doing things properly, but they seem to be systematically destroying themselves through their own actions, resisting all constructive criticism and all the while damaging their reputation and losing custom hand over fist. I know it sounds mercenary, but in a way I hope Atlas do go out of business and get taken over by someone who knows what they're doing, as they don't deserve to survive with an attitude like this.