Go to the top - email the CEO

PatrickO

PatrickO

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Just taken a leaf out of Lynton's book and emailed the CEO of Laterooms after they messed up my booking.

We'll see what happens...
 
This route worked for me with Vodafone. This was only after the general customer service route failed.
 
I once bought a laptop from Laptops Direct in Huddersfield that had a cash back offer, i filled in the form and sent it off and 30 days or so later got a letter saying it had been rejected as there was some small print clause that i had to NOT sent the cash back form in until 14 days had passed and not after 30 days. So effectively you only had 14 day window when it had to arrive at the office and not earlier or later. Obviously it was a borderline scam on there part. I googled the MD, CEO and a few other people and sent a shocking letter to all of them advising them how disgusted I was.

I got a letter within days with a cheque for the £100 cashback
 
neil_g said:
I wonder how many CEOs actually have their own name as their email any more because of this.

most likely it just goes straight to Customer Services.
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it does.. i could explain how it works, but i cannot be arsed to.
 
Lynton said:
it does.. i could explain how it works, but i cannot be arsed to.
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It does as in it does just go to CS?

Not hard to do, just an email alias on the CS mailbox/system.

I could be more sceptical and suggest they leak false CEO email addresses to stop the actual CEO getting emails to his/her actual account.
 
neil_g said:
It does as in it does just go to CS?

Not hard to do, just an email alias on the CS mailbox/system.

I could be more sceptical and suggest they leak false CEO email addresses to stop the actual CEO getting emails to his/her actual account.
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The Vodafone one was 'managed' by the Directors team (apparently).

I didn't really care who was on the other end (if it was CS then so be it) as long as my issue got resolved. It was just another option to use after the standard route had failed.
 
Can only speak from experience (Microsoft and very, very large customers) but what usually happens is the CEO's mail is very much real. From a legal perspective for e-discovery etc it's potentially troublesome to have "secret" CEO email addresses - the CEO will run the company via email usually and as their accounts are usually under legal hold then it may have unpleasant consequences. Usually mail sent from an internal company address will hit their inbox directly. Mail from external sources will go to a triage folder, excepting mail from whitelisted individuals or organisations. Usually a number of PAs will triage the incoming non-whitelisted content and then move what's relevant to the CEOs inbox, bin the loonfodder and probably redirect mails that should be actioned but don't need to consume CEO cycles.

From practical experience, whilst I don't really want to recommend jumping in with all guns blazing for minor issues - mailing the CEO directly can have quite a high hit rate, particularly for tech companies - if you clearly state your problem, frame it with being a reasonable person/previously loyal customer and are clear about what you want - it can have rapid results. If it gets to their eyes and the CEO thinks "it's legit" then they'll probably just ping it over to a PA saying "get it fixed". Having been on the receiving end of mails like this, then that can make the impossible happen almost instantaneously...:-)
 
My favourite from sjobs@apple.com:
email1.jpg
 
Wondering what happens when everyone starts following this practice... Even for the slightest, tiniest mistake s company may make, be it a mouldy tomato on a pizza, a faulty 3d telly, a kerbed tyre. Etc etc etc...

The CEO email becomes the 'go to' for every run of the mill complaint that the complainer thinks should get top priority and now nothing is top priority.

Surely CEO email should be last resort rather than first as seems to be being suggested in many threads here of late??
 
neil_g said:
It does as in it does just go to CS?

Not hard to do, just an email alias on the CS mailbox/system.

I could be more sceptical and suggest they leak false CEO email addresses to stop the actual CEO getting emails to his/her actual account.
Click to expand...
I worked in CS for a large, household name, retailer as a student years ago. Letters or emails to the CEO would be rerouted to the normal CS guys except they'd be coded to indicate they'd come from the CEO's office. The CS department would then reply on behalf of the CEO, which usually just meant the CEO's name went on the letter. Resolution for unescalated issues in these cases was pretty much the same as for anyone who came through the normal CS channels. In some cases you might get a slightly better "goodwill gesture" (vouchers or whatever; something that the customer will like but has a meaningless impact on the company) because writing to the CEO marks you out as someone who'll be a pain in the rear end. It was commonly known as a "shut this idiot up gesture".

The CEO (or his or her PA) would never even see these letters. There are so many it would be impossible for them to see the correspondence even if they cared - which they don't (unless it's something really serious, which is very rare). A large company will be getting tens of thousands of complaints a day, hundreds of which will be addressed to the CEO. The letters get vetted by a team of minimum wage desk monkeys and rerouted accordingly.

The CEO's real email that goes to his or her PA is distributed on a "need to know" basis. Not even our high level managers knew it.

So you might get a slightly better resolution from writing to the CEO, but don't kid yourself that anyone with any real power is reading your complaint and taking it seriously. It's being sent to a bunch of student part-timers & low wage pencil pushers who couldn't actually give a toss.
 
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landwomble said:
Can only speak from experience (Microsoft and very, very large customers) but what usually happens is the CEO's mail is very much real. From a legal perspective for e-discovery etc it's potentially troublesome to have "secret" CEO email addresses - the CEO will run the company via email usually and as their accounts are usually under legal hold then it may have unpleasant consequences. Usually mail sent from an internal company address will hit their inbox directly. Mail from external sources will go to a triage folder, excepting mail from whitelisted individuals or organisations. Usually a number of PAs will triage the incoming non-whitelisted content and then move what's relevant to the CEOs inbox, bin the loonfodder and probably redirect mails that should be actioned but don't need to consume CEO cycles.

From practical experience, whilst I don't really want to recommend jumping in with all guns blazing for minor issues - mailing the CEO directly can have quite a high hit rate, particularly for tech companies - if you clearly state your problem, frame it with being a reasonable person/previously loyal customer and are clear about what you want - it can have rapid results. If it gets to their eyes and the CEO thinks "it's legit" then they'll probably just ping it over to a PA saying "get it fixed". Having been on the receiving end of mails like this, then that can make the impossible happen almost instantaneously...:)
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absolutely spot on.... that is pretty much exactly how it works....... I don't for one min think the actual CEO reads it (with the exception of Ian Butterworth (ex BT)) on a sunday night at 10.30) however it often gets issues resolved quicker and better.

Funnily enough at work the other day, My Outlook account crashed and burned.. phoned IT who told me to email them.... "yeah, that's the problem...I can't"

Guy with attitude, so I said would logon to my own (personal) email , and send one to the IT director explaining the problem. His reply.. "I doubt you have the balls to do that..."

No prizes for guessing what happened within the next 5 mins. Phone call within 10 mins from IT director.
 
I emailed the CEO of BT after my fibre broadband had been down for 3 weeks. I got fed up of the mixed messages, the engineers not turning up, and quite honestly the lies they were telling me. Having worked in the industry for many years I was able to explain what the issues were in quite good detail.

I got a call from his PA, followed by a daily call from a "service manager" who worked for a C level resolution team. Really worked for me, they sorted it out within a couple of weeks when they realised that they had a major issue in the area which had gone unnoticed. Going in at the top very rarely does any harm and just shines light onto areas that generally need additional resource.
 
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