The douches have a king
There’s a huge difference between a CEO choosing not to be as accessible as Apple’s Steve Jobs and AT&T’s threat to sue a customer who emails their CEO, Randal Stephenson, directly.
While AT&T’s apology to their former customer is not wrong, it still misses the point in a huge way: when customers complain, don’t just talk back at them.
I’ve worked for decades in some form of either customer service or communications or both. Whether it was with a small non-profit, fast food, locally owned dry cleaner, or a Forbes 500 multi-billion dollar corporation, they all had customers who wanted to be heard.
I get a lot of flak for having put in time as a customer service rep and debt collector with SallieMae. If you’ve ever taken out a student loan, you’ve done business with them or you will. For some reason, when people owe you money they come to hate you. Before SallieMae I was a telemarketer and can honestly say folks were way nicer when I interrupted their dinner trying to sell something than when they asked me how much they owed on their education loans. (more…)
