Should customers have direct contact with company CEO’s?

Valuable customer feedback can come in many forms, but the most valuable one is the one we can get personally. Why is that? Not all customers are willing to reach out and say what’s on their mind, in fact, according to the White House Office of Customer Affairs for every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent. Now that is a staggering statistic.

These type of facts, that show just how much silence is being delivered, pushed me to change the rules by which we abide in our company. It is better to start off on the right foot, than lose a customer in the long run because of wobbly communication. To improve our customer care, over the past couple of months we decided to welcome each customer personally, and by that I mean a personal email from me, the CEO.

To give new customers a sense of security and care, I have found that it is not just about welcoming them personally, it is also about reaching out and letting them know that even the CEO wants them to succeed. Ask your customer for a quick chat, whether by phone or via Skype, some might prefer to keep the communication in their inbox — that’s ok too. What is important is that you get them talking. Be open, ask them what their first experience with your product or service was like, did they stumble upon road blocks, what they liked and what didn’t work for them. These are all things that could potentially help you change your business into a more customer-oriented one, which will help you attract even more consumers.

Proper communication creates a relationship in which the customer is willing to give feedback and work with you, instead of silently leaving your service because they were unhappy. During a couple of these conversations I received more direct feedback about our services than I could have ever gotten from all the ongoing customer contact that my employees have.

What’s more, it is not just things like “the fonts you use are hard to read”, it is actual information with a lot of insight as to what works and what doesn’t. Remember, your customers click through your service and products more often than you do, they will spot things that you might have forgotten about.

By allowing our new customers to actually get in touch with me, they started to feel like our company cares, and rightly so! I make sure that I look into each customer and their business, I don’t just send a template email, I go for an individual touch and reach out asking about their actual business and what they do. Caring for a customer requires more than just making sure you get the name right.

Starting off on the right foot helped us keep more customers. Not only do I get in touch right away, I also allow customers to have direct contact with me (by both telephone and email). I want each one of those businesses to feel free to contact me whenever a problem arises. Ruby Newell-Legner once concluded in her studies that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative one. Which is why as the CEO, I aim to make sure we have as little unresolved issues as possible, by being open to direct conversations with our customers.

So… should customers have direct contact with company CEO’s? In short, yes.

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