Five Steps to Creating Impactful Open Letters

How my Open Letter got me a Direct Line to the President of a Billion Dollar Company

I wasn’t expecting a response.

I was frustrated. So, I took the time to do what so many people threaten to do, and I wrote a letter. It was an open letter because I was hoping other entrepreneurs on social media would like and share my post to create more pressure than a one-off letter from a small customer (me) directly to the CEO of Shaw Communications, one of Canada’s large internet service providers. To my surprise, within a day of posting the open letter (and a rather small number of likes and shares), I received a voicemail from one of their Vice Presidents and we talked the next day.

You can read the full letter here, or, here’s a short summary of why I was frustrated.

• I am a small business owner.
• Like a lot of SMEs, our revenue has been hammered lately and is down by over 30% as of writing this letter.
• Many of our clients’ revenue has been impacted as much or more.
• We launched our Financial “Survive to Thrive” program with the intention that we all struggle together to financially survive this crisis so we can all thrive together on the back end. Specifically:
• We proactively reached out to clients who have been negatively affected and offered discounts to help them through this brutal time (and asked customers that didn’t need a discount not to take it).
• We proactively offered discounts to prospects to help them survive this tough time while making sure they are still getting good financial info to make the best decisions possible for their businesses.
• We also reached out to our suppliers and contractors asking for them to support the Financial “Survive to Thrive” program. We’re all in this together and we need everyone to participate to make it work.
• I reached out to my internet provider, Shaw Communications and after a long conversation with a Customer Service Rep, was convinced they were going to do nothing to help SMEs and expect them to continue paying 100% rates.

That’s what got me frustrated!!

I am an SME, discounting services to other SMEs to help survive a financial crisis and Shaw, which did over $5 Billion (with a “B”!) in revenue and almost $800 million in net income last year (all figures in CAD) isn’t offering any relief or support. That means the discounts I’m offering my SME clients are effectively subsidizing fees to this multi-billion-dollar company. Does that seem right to you??? Me neither. So, I wrote my letter and posted it.

Within 24 hours, I was contacted by Shadi El Baba, VP Customer Base Management & Retention, Business. We talked the next day. Like the customer service rep I had spoken with two days earlier, he was professional, polite and friendly. Unlike the CSR, he is a VP and has the authority to make changes from within.

I learned a few things on that call. First, my internet account is a residential account, not a business account. That’s why when I was asking the CSR about what they could do for me as an SME, he wasn’t able to do anything because he is on the residential side and only had access to the residential offers. On the commercial side, El Baba shared that Shaw had already taken a number of actions, particularly for the sectors most hit including:

• Stopping service suspensions for commercial customers (that will have to be dealt with later in some way, but for businesses who have lost all their revenue, they won’t also lose their access to internet)
• Offering price relief to industries that have been hit hardest (I have not seen it myself and can’t confirm or suggest otherwise)
• Delaying a pre-approved (through government regulations) rate hike.

He also talked about their priorities over the past few weeks:.

1. The safety and health of staff and
2. Ramping up bandwidth. (As I mentioned in the open letter, I assumed Shaw had been facing a ton of extraordinary costs due to the demand and El Baba confirmed it).

We then talked about ideas I had on how Shaw might be able to help SMEs. Over the past few years, Shaw has been increasing their focus on SMEs and El Baba was open to my thoughts. I made a few suggestions supporting a true win-win approach. Aside from being a good corporate citizen, there is also an opportunity for positive press stories (we could all use more of those right now). Ideas that I suggested included offering large, impactful grants to select SMEs so that they can, in turn, make a difference for other businesses and employees, and offering group discounts to SMEs and their employees to create a mini viral effect.

After a few minutes of brainstorming back and forth and my continued focus on the huge opportunity Shaw can leverage to show up as a true leader and champion of SMEs, El Baba committed to taking our conversation directly to the President and keeping me in the loop of what comes out of it.

Amazing!

Okay, let’s be honest. I don’t know if anything will come of this. I’m hopeful I’ll hear some positive news in the next short while. Either way, I definitely feel heard and I believe El Baba took my letter and my call seriously and that he will follow through on his commitment to take our conversation and ideas to the President. I can also tell you that El Baba connected me with a commercial account manager and he’s already set me up on a commercial account that’s doubled my internet speed at no additional costs (yes, with a longer term contract).

Regardless of the final outcome, my open letter got me a direct line to the President of the company and (hopefully) a champion from inside the company. It got a conversation started that might not otherwise have happened.

Sure, most big companies have tools that pick up social media hits that trigger their customer service teams to reach out. In my case, I got a return call from a VP and a direct line to the President. Here are five things you can do to make your open letter more impactful and more likely to be taken seriously.

1. Be polite and friendly.

Nobody likes a complainer. Remember, a company is really just a collection of humans. Your issue will be taken up by a human (not “a company”). No human wants to be on the receiving end of your complaints. Sure, if you attack and make things personal, you might get a response. But it will likely come from a position of “how do we get this complainer to shut up and stop complaining”.

If you take a polite and friendly approach and think deeply about how your message would best be received (by the humans reading it), you’re more likely to be taken seriously, rather than simply pacified. If you read my letter in full, you’ll see I wasn’t careful not to complain or attack while I mademake my points and I got a response from a Vice President.

2. Do your research

It’s critical to show you’ve done your research. In my letter to Shaw, that was important for two reasons:

First, I acknowledged the recent passing of the CEO’s father (and executive chair of the company). Coming out with guns blazing at someone who just lost their father would have been a real dick inappropriate move. Regardless of my frustrations with the company, I was able to acknowledge the difficult times before getting to the point.

Second, as they were a public company, I looked up their most recent annual and quarterly reports. I knew they were sitting on over $130 million in cash, had generated over $160 million in profit in the last quarter, and earned almost $800 million in profit in the prior fiscal year. This company has the resources to support SMEs. Had I gone after a company who was financially strapped asking for them to be financially proactive, it would have shown classic ignorance on my part.

3. Compliment on the things they are doing well

Every company does some things well and also has areas to improve on. By calling out things they do well, you’ll disarm the perception of conflict. It shows you know enough about them to make an informed point worth listening to. It’s easy to lob grenades from the couch hiding behind a keyboard. Take a minute to really acknowledge what they do will so they see you’re an ally in solving the issue you’re bringing forward.

You’ll note in my letter I was very complimentary of the CSR who took my call (which was genuine) and their staff training program. I also applauded their initiative to give free Shaw Go Wifi to everyone who needed it (not just customers) and additional TV programming to help families stay entertained (this, coming from a guy who doesn’t even own a TV or have a Netflix subscription). I also acknowledged the challenge they might be facing with the massive increase in bandwidth demands.

By letting them know I see things they are also doing well, they are more likely to be open to the things they could do better, rather than just trying to shut me up (see #1 above).

4. Show them the upside of a different/better direction

Again, it’s not about complaining. It’s about offering a different perspective. With Shaw’s focus on its immediate priorities (understandably, employee safety and increased bandwidth), I chose to focus on how they can help in a different way and take a leadership position among big companies supporting SMEs. Generally, regulated oligopolies tend to not have the best reputations, and this is a perfect opportunity to step up and support small business.

5. Make an ask

The point of my letter was to make positive change. It wasn’t about me getting a discount (my goal is much bigger than that). If you write an open letter and aren’t clear on why or what you want out of it, you’ll leave everyone guessing. Getting really clear on what you want can expedite the process and get you connected to senior people inside the organization.

In my case, I had two asks: one of the company and one of other entrepreneurs reading the letter. To the company, I asked them to consider how they can better support SMEs and take a leadership position in a “survive to thrive” movement. To the entrepreneurs, I asked them to like and share my post to add weight and credibility to it (it’s not just me writing a letter, it’s a bunch of entrepreneurs feeling the same way).

I hope to hear that Shaw has come out with a program to support SMEs and to be a leader in the recovery of our economy. This isn’t about making money. It’s about supporting the SMEs (the backbone of the economy) and all the lives touched by those businesses.

My ask today is that you like and share this post along with my initial post to show these big companies that they can make a difference and it’s not only up to SMEs to support other SMEs.

My other ask is for you to ponder a few questions:

• What company can you write an open letter to?
• What are you going to ask of them?
• What impact do you hope to make with your open letter?