Supporting customers gives CEOs a reality check

I'm the CEO and I think I've handled 280 / 282 support tickets we had since we started using UserVoice. It's my primary feedback channel for figuring out where our documentation / product / policies are frustrating customers and is one of the last things I'd ever want to delegate.

I'd add a caveat - I've seen this done before, but with unintended consequences.

exposing a CEO directly to your users is a great idea for all the reasons given, but it can be distracting if they seize on a randomly chosen user's idea as the Next Big Thing which Must Be Implemented Now because it resonates for some reason.

users' ideas and suggestions are great in aggregate, but any given one can be totally the wrong thing to adopt just because the CEO searchlight happens to pause on it and it's given disproportionate attention.

While he's not the CEO, Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, still claims to do a considerable amount of end-user support for the site.

I think it's a fantastic idea.

I've justed received a package from DHL. After more than two weeks of trying to get help from DHL support, I gave up. That is, I gave up on their support, not on getting my package. The initial problem was my fault: I'd supported a Kickstarter campaign ages ago, and the result (two Parallella computers...) finally shipped. To my old office address, where it was rejected, and returned to DHLs depot.

DHL support insisted the local courier still had it, despite the fact the local courier had a signature that said otherwise. Then they went quiet. They stopped replying to e-mail entirely.

So I made DHL execs provide support.

I signed up for LinkedIn Premium, and spent half an hour scouring LinkedIn for the highest ranking DHL execs I could find (no easy job - the number of SVP's they have is staggering), and mailed 3 of them with my gripe.

I didn't really expect much help, but two of them grabbed the opportunity to defuse the situation and find out more about what had gone wrong, and fix it. Between them they got the right people looking into the matter, and assorted customer care people both at DHLs headquarters in Germany, and their local (to me) team in the UK were told that a certain SVP wanted to know what was going on and be kept informed. 4 business days from I bypassed their entire support organization and about 5 levels of management (at a guess) the package finally arrived at my desk.

It's great that they cared. But I went this route because I found no other way to get hold of anyone. When support first ignored me, I e-mailed their press contacts, their sales teams, and every other address I could easily find on their site. Nothing. Total silence. My frustration was intense, and I'm sure other customers must have fallen through the cracks too.

If said execs, which did include a person in charge for a large division of their support team, had spent any time "on the floor" answering support requests, I suspect they'd have a very different picture of their organisation, and maybe my rather unusual approach wouldn't have been necessary.

(so I'm going to take this approach whenever I get inadequate support from now on...)

If you feel your CEO lacks good judgment to the extent that you are afraid to expose him/her to customers lest he/she latches on to an issue that is not so important just because the customer he/she was exposed to happened to have that problem, then I think you either have the wrong CEO or are vastly underestimating his/her decision-making skills.