Should your CEO respond to customer complaints? It might not be a bad idea to let him or her — assuming training is given.
When customers don’t just want “to talk the manager,” does it make any sense to turn them over to the man or woman at the top who is juggling 1,000 things a day?
In some instances, letting the CEO jump in will actually create goodwill with customers.
One example: Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, which holds includes media giants The Wall Street Journal and FOX News among its U.S. holdings, recently responded personally to a Wall Street Journal subscriber in Kentucky who tweeted a complaint about not receiving delivery. Murdoch apologized, fixed the errors that lead to it and got glowing social media reviews for doing so.
But not many CEOs are on the front line. A study by DOMO and CEO.com found that just 4% are on Twitter and 8% are on Facebook. Very few respond to customer issues like Murdoch did. There’s no hard data on how many sit in their contact centers and field calls and emails from customers.
Still, it’s a good idea for CEOs and other top executives to be involved directly with customers. Some use blogs and chat sessions as gateways to customers. Others take time to sit with customer care reps quarterly so they can listen to calls, read emails and try their hand at answering questions.
One company even invited top executives to visit the customer service area and take calls. But C-level execs didn’t answer any questions. They simply fielded the calls and passed along customer questions along to the service reps who were more trained to answer them. It was still a good way to get execs’ feet wet talking with customers.
