Brian wrote:
> If you really want to get nasty, cc: the competition with those same
complaints.
I LOVE that suggestion! Thanks, Brian--it never occurred to me! And it bears
repeating. :-)
I generally go for the throat on the first shot--address the letter to the
president. That way, I know it will go the the right person, in most cases.
Not that it always works--one company ignored at least 7 letters (a credit
card company). My solution--I mailed them my card, in small pieces with one
piece missing. Now they're begging me to come back. Not likely. |-(
Best regards--LRA
------Original Message------
From: "Brian Bisset" <bisset@home.com>
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Sent: May 4, 2001 7:59:39 AM GMT
Subject: RE: filmscanners: Cleaning slides (Poor Customer Service)
I suggest that you direct or at least cc: a copy of your complaint to their
investor relations (IR) dept.... preferably to the head or director of IR
for the corporation. Talk about inferior products, reduced shareholder
confidence, loss of real or perceived marketshare, etc. Tell them that
there is a very bad vibe going around the Internet...
I guarantee you that you'll receive commentary back. I don't care what
company we're talking about, the director of Investor (Public) Relations has
more "swing" than the director of customer service/tech support. Period.
End of story.
Let's say that corporation ABC has 100 million shares out, which typical for
a big company. A weakening of support in the marketplace... let's say a
$.25 drop in shareprice. That relates to a paper loss of 25 million
dollars... OK, now you've got their attention. But volatility in the
markets has somewhat of a cascading, self-fulfilling prophesy effect. $.25
can easily turn to $2.50 or $5.00
Now you've literally got thousands of investors calling the IR dept.
wondering what the hell is going on.
I won't tell you that contacting the IR dept. will guarantee you
satisfaction... but you can be sure that they'll at least be listening -
they can't afford not to. I've resorted to this twice before, and it has
worked *great* on both occasions... Once with Mazda and once with Rogers
Cable.
If you really want to get nasty, cc: the competition with those same
complaints.
Brian Bisset
Corpfinance Advisors, Inc.
bdb@corpfinance.net
Art and EdHamrick@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 5/3/2001 6:07:17 AM EST, artistic@ampsc.com writes:
>
>
>> Would you like me to translate "we'll contact Japan about it" into
English?
>>
>> "Please go away and leave us alone... we didn't create this problem and
>> its Japan's fault. If they gave a rats ass, they would have fixed it
>> long ago, since they've known about the problem for a long time".
>
>
> My local Nikon contacts forwarded a complete technical description
> of this problem to Nikon in Japan, along with a demonstrated fix that
> solves the problem. Having worked in a large company before, I
> suspect that the information never got to the engineers who work on
> the scanner software, and I suspect these engineers aren't even
> aware of the problem.
>
> I've always liked the saying "Never ascribe to malice that which is
> adequately explained by incompetence."
>
> Regards,
> Ed Hamrick
>
Certainly, big companies "allow" important information to fall through
the cracks. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally, and
sometimes at their peril.
I've certainly had my share of the "oh, we never got your __________"
(fill in the blank with email, fax, call, letter) even on the third or
forth volley. I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid.
Companies choose to develop a culture which respects communications from
their clients or ignore it, or a bit of both. When I managed companies
(a good half dozen) no letter when unanswered, no matter how
insignificant (to me) it seemed. Some of those replies ultimately led
to contacts which proved very fruitful, and some were from younger
people who got to recognize that their ideas and concerns had value or
import- that they weren't being ignored. Yes, sometimes we used form
letters. At one company (a poster and graphics company) we solicited for
photos through magazine ads. We received many submissions from very
amateur photographers who thought they had great and useful images. I
developed a part form letter, part personalized response to try and help
them recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and what they could do to
make their images more useful for our needs. I hopefully helped some to
become better photographers.
When I go out of my way to contact a company and provide them with
useful feedback as to a bug or defect, and often a solution (as you have
with Nikon), I find it very offensive that the information should be
just lost in the mix somewhere. It is equivalent to being ignored. It
makes one develop, a "why bother" attitude. I do not easily forgive
these type of companies.
Without over emphasizing this matter, I again have noted a huge
improvement at HP. As an example, if you go to their website now, you
will find a direct link for email to their CEO. And, unlike many
websites where you can't even leave a message, if you leave one for
Carly Fiorina (the CEO) you will receive a reply, and not a form letter
either. They now make sure your email gets to the proper department,
and then you get a call or email from someone who can help.
This is a big change in their culture (almost a return to where they
were before) and it is working well. I was at an HP seminar 2 weeks ago
(on their wide carriage printers) and I asked numerous employees there
how they felt about the change in management, every one of them told me
the same thing. They felt so much more useful, more listened to, and
more able to respond to customer needs than under the previous
management and structure. Carly apparently has completely revamped the
corporate culture, and the corporate structure so there is more direct
access to the right people both internally and externally.
Maybe it just takes a woman ;-)
Art
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