Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?
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Recently there have been several posts on the private forums for my EHR with people saying they are trying to find ways to reach the CEO - I'm assuming so they can basically just complain at the CEO about how much they hate the product and how slowly the company is moving on needed changes (changed that said customer feels should be there).
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@Dashrender I don't expect access to the CEO of a company, but I do expect to have a way to contact their office.
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@travisdh1 said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender I don't expect access to the CEO of a company, but I do expect to have a way to contact their office.
And other than a form letter response, what do you expect when you contact them?
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The thing that I don't understand - why stay?
I know it really sux changing platforms - But is it worth it to stay on a platform that after a year still sux?
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
The thing that I don't understand - why stay?
I know it really sux changing platforms - But is it worth it to stay on a platform that after a year still sux?
The pain of migration a lot of times will outweigh the desire to change.
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Our CEO response to customers and helps make sure their issues are resolved. He doesn't type the responses himself he has his assistants type them. But he does work on the issues and make sure they are fixed.
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@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
Our CEO response to customers and helps make sure their issues are resolved. He doesn't type the responses himself he has his assistants type them. But he does work on the issues and make sure they are fixed.
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
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@Dashrender said in [Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?](/topic/8918/access-to-ceos-of-a-company-
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
Why? The CEO doesn't have a lot to handle. He's working with people on the direction and image of the company. Handling issues that come to the CEOs office from customers is part of making the image of the company.
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@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender said in [Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?](/topic/8918/access-to-ceos-of-a-company-
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
Why? The CEO doesn't have a lot to handle. He's working with people on the direction and image of the company. Handling issues that come to the CEOs office from customers is part of making the image of the company.
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
Our CEO response to customers and helps make sure their issues are resolved. He doesn't type the responses himself he has his assistants type them. But he does work on the issues and make sure they are fixed.
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
I have had to call Executive Support (Office of the CEO) numerous times for various companies and it definitely should have been handled at a much lower level. The problem occurs when you have failures in your support structure that cannot properly resolve the issue for the customer. If they have went through the normal procedure and followed up the chain of command to no avail, the CEO's office is the last stop before no longer being a customer. If the CEO doesn't care to attempt to resolve the issue, you learn why the rest of their support staff didn't seem to care about resolving the issue as well (Looking at you RingCentral). I would never do it to just complain or submit feedback, but in my quest to make vendors keep their word and promises, its a very important tool that should only be used occasionally.
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
Ahh you see that's the entire point! They are too busy to be dealing with 100s of calls weekly, so they need to get the problems fixed to stop the calls from coming in. If you make the boss deal with the problem, most of the time he doesn't want to deal with this small time BS and will force people to resolve it for you
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@Brains said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
Ahh you see that's the entire point! They are too busy to be dealing with 100s of calls weekly, so they need to get the problems fixed to stop the calls from coming in. If you make the boss deal with the problem, most of the time he doesn't want to deal with this small time BS and will force people to resolve it for you
yeah I kinda realized that point after I wrote that post.
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@travisdh1 said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender I don't expect access to the CEO of a company, but I do expect to have a way to contact their office.
And other than a form letter response, what do you expect when you contact them?
From just my one letter, I don't expect any change. When the office continues to receive letters saying something like "We are no longer using your companies products because...", they had better change if they want to stay in business.
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I think that accessing the CEO is a ridiculous expectation. It's fine if a company wants to make the CEO accessible, but the CEO has a job to do and customer interaction is not it. Requiring the CEO do the job of an account rep means that the company can't do the things that it needs to do. Why not require the CEO answer help desk calls, fix bugs or deliver the mail?
External customers demanding to determine how a company is run are clueless.
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender said in [Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?](/topic/8918/access-to-ceos-of-a-company-
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
Why? The CEO doesn't have a lot to handle. He's working with people on the direction and image of the company. Handling issues that come to the CEOs office from customers is part of making the image of the company.
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
Problem is, a tiny company with few customers won't care how many they get because it can't be many. The CEO of a large company will be inundated by calls no matter how good the product or service is. It's a nonsensical process as it punishes the CEO for his company being successful, not for doing things wrong. It's an inverse punishment - the ability to punish only exists when there isn't a need to.
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While I could not explain it, here comes Scott to explain why I didn't think CEO access by the customer was really warranted or a good thing.
That said, the CEO shouldn't be so disconnected as to be completely unaware of problems customers are having.
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
That said, the CEO shouldn't be so disconnected as to be completely unaware of problems customers are having.
Of course not, the CEO should really know what is going on. But through reports, sampling, stats, etc.
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@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender said in [Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?](/topic/8918/access-to-ceos-of-a-company-
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
Why? The CEO doesn't have a lot to handle. He's working with people on the direction and image of the company. Handling issues that come to the CEOs office from customers is part of making the image of the company.
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
Them anwsering the calls/emails themselves is just stupid. Our CEO has multiple assistants that handle that stuff. You contact the "office of the CEO" not the CEO. But they do get involved and have weekly meetings about the complaints and what's going on, and what can be improved.
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@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Jason said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
@Dashrender said in [Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?](/topic/8918/access-to-ceos-of-a-company-
I definitely understand that the CEO should be making sure these things are handled - but unless your company is small, that seems like something that should be mainly handled much lower on the tree than the CEO.
Why? The CEO doesn't have a lot to handle. He's working with people on the direction and image of the company. Handling issues that come to the CEOs office from customers is part of making the image of the company.
Honestly I have no clue how busy a CEO at a company the size of EHR company would be - though I would expect them to be busy enough not to be fielding 100's of complaint calls weekly.
Them anwsering the calls/emails themselves is just stupid. Our CEO has multiple assistants that handle that stuff. You contact the "office of the CEO" not the CEO. But they do get involved and have weekly meetings about the complaints and what's going on, and what can be improved.
I'm not even management and you can't reach me directly!
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A company should have a fair and consistent complaints procedure. The reason customers bypass this and contact the CEO directly is because they feel they will get a better result than going through the official channel. But that is wrong. As a customer, it shouldn't matter who I complain to, I should get the same result. Otherwise, it is unfair on customers who stick to the standard complaints procedure and don't try and game the system by contacting the CEO directly.
But the CEO should monitor the complaints procedure behind the scenes to make sure it is fit for purpose.
It has frustrated me in the past when I've worked in a customer facing role. There were many times when I have had to say no to a customer because of our company policy. For example, let's say they wanted support on our software but didn't have a support contract - our policy was no contract, no support. Some might then complain to the CEO, and the CEO, rather than explaining our policy to them, just wanted an easy life and told me to support them anyway. It's easy for him to make exceptions to policy because he's not on the front line.
But this is life in general. He who shouts loudest gets the best treatment. It's endemic in the NHS where everyone knows if you want the best treatment you have to kick up a massive fuss. Getting decent medical care becomes a battle that you have to fight with NHS staff. This is blatantly unfair. As someone who hates confrontation, I lose out!
/rant
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@Carnival-Boy said in Access to CEOs of a company - should you a consumer have it?:
But this is life in general. He who shouts loudest gets the best treatment.
As someone on the autism spectrum, my natural response to people shouting louder is not to give them better service, but to immediately begin to punish them for bad behaviour. Reduce service levels or fire the client as an example to others. Someone who relies on being a bad customer to get what they want will likely always be a bad customer and will just get worse if you reward bad behaviour and others will learn to do so. Why a CEO would cave to a squeaky wheel makes no sense as it just trains customers to harass the CEO and make his life worse.
