Make Your Problem Their Problem

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The hardest part of fixing your problem is finding the person who can help and why you need to go to the top of any company. Don't be shy they are there for a reason and you by contacting them make your problem theirs.

Last night I wrote a nice letter to the CEO of Aviva UK and as expected I received an apologetic response back this morning. She then stated that she has already placed one of her managers on this and will respond as soon as possible.

I don't normally need to do this and it should never come down to this if the company is running as it should. The problem is now the CEO's problem and this reflects on her because she is in charge. The wording has to be sincere explaining the issues in order to get the message across and there is no need to attack her yet because I need her help and believe she will et this resolved very quickly.

This is only the 2nd time I have had to reach out to a CEO for assistance with the last one being SKY television in the UK back in the mid 1990's. On that occasion I had bought the package in order to watch the Cricket Ashes only to be told there would be a 10 day delay for installation. There was no internet or social media like we see today so it made things a little more difficult to reach out.

I got lucky finding the CEO's name in a magazine article and phoned him and it turned out he was actually a great guy who understood where I was coming from. He was from New Zealand and we chatted about sport for about 30 minutes plus discussed my installation issue. This was on a Friday evening and after the call the doorbell rung a few hours later with a special team on site to install what needed to be done.

The technicians mentioned that I obviously knew someone because no one gets their installations at 8pm in the evening especially on a Friday night. I learned that if you are genuine and sincere plus being pleasant people will go out of their way to make sure you stay that way.

I have been on the other side of the telephone dealing with complaints and it is not difficult making someone happy. All you have to do is listen and then work out how to correct what has gone wrong. I never forget one client who was named Elvis and joked he had got out the wrong side of the bed because his attitude sucked. I was here to help him and listening to expletives and cussing was not going to fix anything. In those days I always had a spare team on standby for any issues and hey were dispatched whilst he was still on the phone. Elvis phoned me back within forty minutes a changed man thanking me for the quick response. This is how things should work if a customer has been messed around.

There was one other funny moment when an irate customer was going off with my PA and I recognised the name. There can only be so many people with the same name and when I took the call I swore at him as much as he swore at me. His name was Craig Williams and I had worked with him at a previous company. We were laughing at each other once I told him who I was and he now relaxed because he knew me personally. I was good at this game helping irate customers and it was something I enjoyed because you can make the difference.

I do think most CEO's who are contacted with problems actually do not mind because they get to learn things about their company. This also gets them more involved in understanding where and how they can improve things which is a positive. Most calls however are not serious problems and only certain customers stand out and why you need to be sincere reaching out for help.

I could have written this letter 2 months ago already, but needed it to get to this point before reaching out or I would have been one of many and not the big problem. This should be resolved this week if the CEO is any good at her job and that is what I expect to happen.

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