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" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Art and [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated 5/3/2001 6:07:17 AM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 ----------------------------------------------- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
