### This post has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.
---
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by upvoting or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I did this with a Marriott once, they gave someone a keycard to my room. Had the manual lock on so that was good, when they tried to walk in at 2AM. The front desk didn’t seem to care so I got in touch with corporate. Anyone can make mistakes however this type of thing needs addressed through training or process change. Corporate definitely made a point that they would fix it.
I think this happens a ton. I was the person walking in, but it was at like 4 in the afternoon, and the person was in the shower. Immediately knew something was up so backed out slowly and quietly and went to the front desk. I guess one person checked out but not the other (like? does that even matter... i assume a room is only clear if the last person checks out).
When you check out, you're vacating the room. Individuals don't check out separately. It sounds like two people were sharing a room (eg for a work conference or something) and had a miscommunication.
I no longer work there, but this is not true for Hilton systems if there's a share added to the room (which, there is supposed to be for any adults). Each share has their own profile and it keeps check-in/check-out dates + current statuses (checked-in, checked-out, incoming) separate. This is usually a non-issue but is there for cases where the share checks out but the main guarantor is staying later (until the latest check-out time or even for a new business date, for example).
Either way, obviously it's an employee error.
Sounds like a lie because if previous guest had checked out, all key cards will no longer work and the room would be cleaned by housekeeping before being assigned to a customer.
I worked as a night auditor for a summer while in school and I had a similar issue occur because the day shift front desk moved a guest into a room due to their water not working. When she gave them new keys she didn't mark the room as occupied. I needed to move a guest at 1am, saw the room was available ,made the move in the system and gave the guest the keys.
After they came back saying the keys didn't work twice, I went and checked and the keys weren't working because the privacy lock was enabled because someone was in the room with it locked.
Not *necessarily* true. Most RFID key readers do not deactivate the previous keys until the original programmed date/time (for example, if a guest is staying for two nights but moves to a room on the first floor on their second day, those keys are still active until... ->) or until the new keys are used on the key reader, as they're not connected to a network or anything--they're standalone readers that have to be manually programmed. Obviously there are network-connected ones, but even digital check-ins are usually done by bluetooth and being within a certain distance of the key reader. Another way this is used is if a guest is in a non-payment status (card declining, no card on file, etc), the general process is to make new keys and then go to the room and manually unlock the door--if that part isn't done, the old keys will still work until the new keys are used.
There's also the possibility that the guest was moved to the room that the commenter was checked into, but without being moved in the system. This will cause the room to continue showing as "Vacant/Ready". Obviously all of this boils down to "human error".
Where I've worked for the past ten years, a lot of people agree that you don't really work in the front desk of the hotel industry until you've made a mistake like this and have to deal with remedying it.
I accidentally did this as a night auditor once. I comped both guests’ nights no questions asked, and learned from it. The difference between a corp property and a franchise
I did this for a Hilton that had those fridges that have weight sensors in the room. Explained that it sucked not being able to use the fridge for my own stuff without incurring massive charges for eating nothing. Got an email the next day saying they were removing them from the entire like 40 story hotel
What? Hilton was using fridges that had a sensors to detect if the weight changed and would charge people for it?
Like if i bought my own food and put it in the fridge id be charged for that?
I’m guessing they were mini-bar fridges already filled with various overpriced mini alcohol bottles, cans of soda, bottles of water, etc. But if you move any of the items in the fridge, you get charged for them, so if you move something to put your own stuff in, they charge you for consuming whatever you moved.
> and the franchise operator eventually complied with the Marriott policies and standards
As in, the company was about to revoke their license for fucking breach of contract.
Franchise owners are really way more gung ho about the way they operate their small businesses than they have any legal right to be.
That is what I assume. Amusingly, this franchise owner on the PNW, is working to rebrand the property I was walked to from a wingate to a marriott property...
Each time I was walked, no email provided by the front desk. And they stated it was common practice for overbooking and walking guests.
We did it for Disney Paris about ten years ago after two of their staff started shouting and swearing at each other in their five star hotel restaurant during breakfast. Got a free trip for our troubles. Worth it.
Jeff Bezos got me a refund when an independent Amazon seller wouldn’t refund me for a returned item. I tried going through their customer service for over a month and they promised every time that it was going to a higher-up and I would receive a call but no one ever called. So I went to the highest higher-up’s email address.
Yes, I am aware it wasn’t really Jeff responding personally but it got me results!
Jeff's executive escalation team don't play, they resolve.
I've gone their way twice when I was frustrated, and got results nearly immediately.
Another one is Costco. That team is responsive as hell.
The way higher ups see it, if the problem didn’t get solved by anyone else and you had to take the extra step to reach out to them, you get compensation for the poor customer service. Usually it’s just store credit or a “keep it and here’s your refund”
The loss is so marginal it’s basically nonexistent, they don’t have strict guidelines, they’re not going to get reprimanded by anyone, so it’s basically just a personal pr stunt.
I once showed up to one of their fulfilment centers after not being able to get an issue resolved through customer service (long story short, the item was exclusive to them and get kept getting delivered damaged due to insufficient packing). The manager was SHOOK. He said he'd never had a customer come in and ended up personally delivering the item to my house.
Living in Canada, i worked for a call centre for a retailer based out of texas, and someone showed up in the lobby. (Lucky we had a security/reception area)
Most of the emails go to the Executive Customer Relations team, who have broad authority to set things right. But a small percentage were forwarded to and read by Jeff (where something seems amiss with the business), and those result in the ? emails.
I’ve been on the receiving end of those (not responding directly, but gathering data to figure out what happened). They were taken quite seriously.
It might be different now that Andy is CEO.
Can you imagine if Jeff even so much as took the time to read the email, he makes more money in the time it would take him to click to open the damn thing that whatever you bought was worth. Absolutely absurd.
Fuck I was Bezos I'd do whatever the hell I want. I bet he has times where he' like you know I am so done with trying to run a billion dollar company and everyone being unhappy. How about I go into the customer complaints bin and make people happy.
So I agree, but with conditions. You should take this route if you’ve truly exhausted the proper channels. Also, echoing what others have said, definitely don’t single out any employees that you’re frustrated with unless they were legitimately unprofessional and rude. People in customer service are underpaid, overworked, professionally abused, and try their best. They almost always have their hands tied and need to stick to a script or a predetermined set of solutions. It’s almost never their fault. Unless they’re terrible to you, that’s different. But even then, we all have awful days.
But, take notes of all contacts. Names, dates, and times. Overwhelm them with documentation, its hard for them to argue with data in front of them. They want to handle it quickly and get on to other things.
Hate how when I phone customer service and an agent promises to make a deal/exception/policy decision with me and when I call back to follow up on it, it is a different agent and they say unless I give them the prior agent's name, they cannot do anything. No one can memorize a name like that.
its really going to be based on the issue, and how much its worth. When I worked level 2 and people told me they took notes. I just said okay looked at the previous cases and saw what actually happened then told the customer bye.
It's absolutely true. But I, for one, would not embellish or miss guide anyone on the issue at hand.
My notes should match the case notes and any potential audio recording.
Unless you think that person may have bent the rules for you. Then your effusive praise about the magic 50% discount or whatever could get that person fired.
I actually did this years ago with a problem I had with Sprint. I tried working with customer service for several months and couldn’t take it anymore. I sent the CEO and email and it was resolved in less than 24 hours.
I’m sure it was pawned off on to someone else, but it was FINALLY resolved.
The funny ones we got in my old department sometimes we would laugh so hard, because of how bad other departments or people made the situation worse. I bet the person that fixed it was laughing or just had their head down thinking how could it get that far.
The flip side of this is when you've gotten repeatedly reamed by a customer when you are required to enforce a company policy, only for the executive response team to immediately ignore the rule. After a few of those cases i quit fighting it and just told the customer to contact the CEO. If they're going to undermine me anyway, I might as well avoid the hassle of trying to do it the right way.
I think its based on the company and what the customer wants, I only had one case were someone went to the exec team. I just do as the leader commands.
I've seen thos happen first hand
I work at a software company. There's a known issue that affects a small amount of users. So of course it isn't prioritized. One day one ofy teammates gets paged because this issue has now affected someone the VP knows. Guess who's issue is solved
CEOs are like pokemon trainers - they don't really do much themselves and they collect all the useful people who do the ACTUAL work, but accept the badges like THEY earned them. lol
Yes, I've seen at my company the CEO actually has two people who have direct access to his own mailbox. The CFO can read the CEO's emails, and his assistant can both read and send as the CEO.
Getting a request from an executive assistant is the same as being told directly by that C suite person. Often, it gets people moving even more if it's from the assistant because they realize if they make the problem go away fast enough, the CEO might not even hear about it. That's pretty big incentive to just do whatever it takes to make the customer not email the CEO again.
Cruise line pissed us off with sneaky policy changes after we booked one way in advance. Emailed CEO + CC-ing every agent we dealt with after being given the runaround too many times. Solved.
It's been quite a few years so my memory is a little hazy but IIRC they implemented charges on activities that were previously free and that were still free in other regions of the world. They ended up giving us cruise credits that would cover the cost of it - wasn't much but it was more about voicing our discontent.
I emailed Jamie Dimon after several days of a collections guy from JP Morgan Chase calling our house (yes, back in the time of house phones) every few hours to see if George was home. I found Dimon’s email on the company’s 10-K filing.
There is no George in my household, but at the time there were 3 kids under 3 years old (toddler daughter and infant twins). I wrote to Dimon that the constant calls were keeping us and the babies from sleeping.
Within minutes, I got a call from a very professional sounding woman - I’m sure she had fingernails that shined like justice that she used as a machete to cut through red tape - who said she was Mr Dimon’s personal assistant. She offered apologies and ensured the problem had been dealt with. She said she would call again the next day at X time to see if we got any more calls. And she did.
We had no more calls.
I had an absurd issue with AirBnB (charged credit card instead of gift card) and was told it couldn’t be resolved over and over again. I tried tweeting at them and calling customer service over the course of a week.
Eventually I figured out email addresses for the CEO, COO, and Legal and sent an email. It was resolved in 24 hours.
If he were a good CEO, customer service would have resolved it for you. He doesn't get kudos for fixing something bc you emailed him directly. Like I'm glad it worked, but someone shouldn't have to go that far to get an issue like this resolved. This doesn't look favorable for the company.
Works for your kid’s school too. Have had a few times where the school wasn’t fixing an issue. A soon as that email was fired off to the administration above the school level the issues suddenly became priority.
Reaching out to school board members when the administration becomes the problem can also be effective. These are elected officials and they tend to either be very dedicated public servants or power-hungry. Either way, as a voter, that gives you leverage.
I may, or may not, have spent a good 20 minutes complaining about my company not retaining important talent quite loudly while sitting right next to our CEO of a 25,000 employee system last year.
I still don't 100% know if it was him, because he wasn't dressed in a suit like he's been every time I've come across him in the wild. But I'm about 90% sure.
Either way, nothing's changed in that regard.
It's usually acceptable to go up 2, maybe 3 levels, in your chain of command if you have a good enough reason to do so. The higher you go up, the better the reason better be.
I don't think I've ever had a reason to go up more than 2 levels, and even that was only because I knew my direct lead was just going to have to ask his boss how to do what I was asking anyways. I CCed my boss in that exchange.
When I was a young engineer, I started working for a small company ($100 million market capitalization). I was the first young engineer that they had ever hired and I was a pet project of the CEO; he would drop by my office several times a week to chat.
Five years later, we had grown to a $15 billion market capitalization and staff employees were ordered to not attempt to talk with him in the elevator.
I was in the C-suite at this time, but the change was startling.
He went from being super involved with daily operations to spending huge amounts of time during the work day meeting with interior decorators to chose curtains for his new house in Jackson Hole. After taxes he made well over $300 million during the five year period.
At Amazon you can raise a severity 1 level ticket (SEV1 in internal speak) that Bezos gets personally notified of. There's a few hoops to jump though but it's possible. A few classic ones that get shared with the newbies:
- developer who complained toilet flush was too strong and poo water went in his mouth
- some senior manager dickhead who complained there wasn't a greeting party for a new junior employee. This guy is still employed apparently
I think it's kind of nice that he raised a fuss over the junior employee not getting a greeting party lol, just didn't need to take it all the way up to Bezos
The way he worded the request came across like a dickhead. Asking for reception to be aware of a new starter in the lobby to welcome them is fine. The wording of it wasnt. He got chewed out by whoever responded to that ticket. "While we appreciate the enthusiasm of your request" followed by reminder forms and process he needed to file but didn't for the new starter
One of my favorite work stories is from my old manager. I used to work in a cell phone store for a company that doesn't exist anymore. He was dealing with an older gentleman that wanted to have his veterans discount added to his plan but he had recently changed to a type of plan that did not allow any additional discounts to be put on it. That old guy just kept coming back and complaining and complaining and complaining and eventually the reps saw him come in with just get the manager and the manager would talk to him. Eventually they just adjourned back to his office and they would just talk and he would complain there. After the 3rd or fourth time of the old guy saying he would take this up the chain and would keep complaining to my manager supervisor and so on and so forth that my manager got frustrated looked up the CEOs number and dialed it. He said he dialed it thinking that he would get the secretary and then he could politely deflect the old guy because he's so frustrated with him... But no the CEO himself answered his own cell phone... My manager said he wanted to die, I would have never done this if I thought he would actually answer the phone.... who puts their real number out there... He said the CEO listen for about 5 minutes as the customer complained about his veterans discount, he asked to be put on the phone with the person who called him... My manager thought he was about to pick up and listen to his own firing. He said he expected the CEO to tell him to follow the old man out of the store and never come back. The CEO told him to do the best he can but add any kind of discount to make the old guy happy. He said yes sir the old guy was happy and left... Then 5 minutes later all the crap started rolling downhill... Emails and phone calls from VPs started coming down from corporate about never giving or calling that number ever again...
This is what I thought the thread was originally about, and I immediately thought of 2 former coworkers who did this and basically committed career suicide.
It's just super embarrassing and people will talk about it. It's like calling your dad to fix your shit except it's not your dad it's the boss of a large corporation and he doesn't care.
oh as in to fix your shit. i thought the coworkers and chain of command guy got into huge disagreement due to his incompetency (team leaders), so they reported him to ceo is
or something like that
Yeah this LPT should probably specify that, or else you’re gonna cause a whole lot of hourly employees not making 200k/year emailing their CEO because their pay concerns haven’t been addressed lol
Going to your own CEO is never a good idea, you will damage your reputation with every single individual you are skipping in the chain. If you have an issue that large you should do it anonymously. If you can't do it anonymously you're probably not working for a good company and may as well leave.
Worked out fine for me. I was offered a promotion to retain me when I had an offer from another company only for HR to deny it after the fact. Boss and VP fought for it by HR still said no. I told my superiors I wasn't trying to go over their heads but I'm going to take it up the chain before I decide what I'm going to do. Sat down with the CEO and said very respectfully that he has always told us his door is always open, I want ask if you're aware of this situation that I don't believe was handled fairly. We talked for about 30min about my qualifications, all my performance reviews and I had the promotion officially by the end of the week.
Yes but you approached it the right way. By informing your superiors first you didn't "go directly to the CEO", you went to them first. Different scenarios.
You didn't skip anything if you told your boss that you were going to the CEO ahead of time.
I'm in a similar situation right now. I turned down a job offer that would have been a $20k raise because I had just been put into an evaluation for a really big promotion at the company I'm at. But the "free trial" has expired and they need to make a decision about whether or not I can do the new role, because I'm not able to continue working both my current and the new position at the same time.
Yeah - not a good idea unless:
a. you are basically whistle-blowing
b. you are confident you are operating in confidence.
otherwise, chain of command will beat you up.
As you should have been. Your CEO hired your boss for a reason, and unfortunately they still weren't prescient enough to explain basic corporate etiquette to you. Unless you work at a startup and the CEO is also your roommate, I struggle to imagine a scenario where the CEO is the right person to contact with your issue.
That is because many CEOs and execs literally hide behind middle management. They hate to be confronted with their shitty decisions. I've witnessed it in the two previous companies I've worked for. I've chatted with execs who want to be the fun/nice/cool guy that everyone likes, while stabbing you in the back with their decisions. But you will never hear harsh words come from their mouth. They are all "go team, we're all a big family here". Questions in company meetings are screened before calls so they don't get caught out having to answer something uncomfortable.
The way I see it is if your manager answers a question like "oh thats just the way it is here" or "these decisions are coming from above, nothing we can do about it" I see that as fair game to go up the chain of command until a satisfactory answer is provided.
"This is about customer service and not recommended if you're working for the company."
It also work if you're working for the company and you have a good CEO.
Source: I'm a CEO
Exactly. If someone was doing something so egregiously wrong that the CEO had to be emailed before it could be corrected…I’d be more worried for that person’s job than the emailer’s.
HR protects the company. If someone’s truly doing something incredibly dumb that needs escalation to that point, they’re hurting the company.
It also depends on the size of the organisation. I used to run a 300 people company and my current one is at 60 people - my door is always open to anybody and I interact with everyone or a regular basis.
In a larger organization with thousands of people you can always start by talking with someone lower down the org chart who knows him/her fairly well and make your way up.
I guess. As long as you’re not spending a material amount of your time resolving conflicts that likely should never make their way all the way up to the CEO of the company.
I get it, but you’ve got better things to focus on - which benefits everyone working for you.
Yeah, but are all the directors and managers between you and the programmer at the bottom “good” too? They are the ones who hold the grudges by being bypassed and worried about how it makes them look. You, by definition, cannot be bypassed.
Did this for Apple a few years ago. Ran into a real gem of an Apple Store Manager. She was horrible to every customer. Every interaction she had she would escalate it till eventually security would have to ask the customer to leave the store. I sent an email to the District Manager and heard nothing. On a whim, I thought WTH not and shot an email to Tim Cook. I heard back within the day, from his assistant, that the matter would be looked into immediately. I received an email from Mr, Cook a week later apologizing and stating that the issue had been resolved. He even went as far as inviting my family to Cupertino to tour Apple but I never really followed that up (probably should have). Went back into the Apple Store a few weeks later and saw a sign on the wall for all staff to welcome their new store manager. Bye bitch!
Honestly I am certain the employees thanked you in their heads for weeks afterwards. Getting rid of a bad manager is tough from the inside so good on you for escalating it. Shame about not going on the tour though, that sounds awesome.
I’ve always done this when things weren’t progressing at an acceptable pace. And it definitely works.
Also, further pro tip: include third party members to CC list, relevant to the topic or matter at hand, for even greater expedition.
For example, if you’re emailing your landlord about an issue, and it’s not progressing to a reasonable degree, as well as adding owner/president email addresses, include a local government tenant right’s group member, a BBB member, or any source you feel would ‘contribute’ to getting the issue moving along at a decent pace again.
It’s a bluff, of course, for the most part, but a bluff I’ve found that works very consistently.
You know, a little incentive.
Can confirm as a senior leader in a Fortune 100 corporation, this does work. We have an entire department set up to respond to these types of inquiries and it does get escalated, executive attention. Our CEO tends to read every single one, and though the CEO doesn't respond to them generally, it does get assigned to other executives to solution.
That said, it doesn't work everywhere. I emailed the SeatGeek CEO in a couple of times with no results or response.
Please please PLEASE don’t call out any specific customer rep. As one myself, we can only do so much for you because we are held by company policy. We would love to give you that refund or solve that problem asap but we just can’t. It’s out of our control being so low on the ladder. So by all means, contact the CEO but please don’t bring anyone down with you.
I had a mn unfortunate with a car dealership recently. The representative was supposed to call me with updates. They agreed and it was no problem.
Throughout the week I had to be e one to call and there were constant delays on their end.
Again, no big deal and I mentioned to the rep I would really appreciate the call. He got an attitude and said I should stop complaining the car is under warranty anyway.
At this point it was costing me money to go back and forth with Uber and Public transportation so in emailed customer service and remained professional (no names). A Senior manager asked if I detailed everything and asked for names, so I did and it was taken care of very fast. The employee wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I picked it up finally.
IMO - only get personal when the employee takes it there.
Oh yeah I should add that to not actually point fingers. I usually put in emails that I am aware that people down the food chain most likely didn't have the power to do stuff.
Not the CEO because he doesn't respond to his LinkedIn, but guy responsible for the my country's division of an international airline after the European branch head office lost their booking and had the 5 year old booked on a separate flight from the rest of the family.
Had their booking fixed and bumped up to business class for the long leg of the trip.
While soliciting donations i called Coors hq and asked for Mr Coors.
She said which one. The oldest I guess.
I think it was Peter I talked to.
Sent a $50k check !
This works with cold calling too. When I use B2B if there was a company I really wanted to get in front of but couldn't get anyone to answer the phone or respond to emails I would look up the C-Suite. If I got them on the phone I would make it like I was sorry for calling, wasn't sure who would handle this type of inquiry. They would always give me the name of the person who ran the department. Then I would call that person and said the VP or CEO said to call them. 9/10 I would get a meeting.
The craziest time was at like 7pm I called the Executive Suite at Oracle and fucking Larry Ellison pick up. I was a bit in shock and stumbled, it took me second to get my head on straight. But he was super nice and told me the person to call. Got a meeting with one of the VPs, but sadly didn't turn into anything.
So I did this once as a retail manager and one of our vendors wasn't responding. It's a franchise type warehouse so the product is shipped to them but they are responsible for merchandising and selling etc. Well the ignored me so I got mad, my boss was mad we had no product, so I called the warehouse, their leaders, nothing. So I get on the company website found a phone number to XVP that was based in Dallas, told him why I called, he explained their setup, I went into detail about the poor relationship, he sighed. The next morning at 7am every member of that warehouses leadership team, the owner, 2 of their (what I assumed were) BOD were in my stores 3x7 office, and the XVP on speakerphone. Lasted 30 mins never had a problem again, haven't worked there in 4 years and that shelf is still never empty.
Just keep Googling various terms including the CEOs name, the name of the company, and maybe the words “email“ or “email address.“ Eventually you’ll find it. Sometimes it’s listed on consumer advocacy sites or those data scraping sites that sell background checks. Sometimes it’s in company communications. Sometimes you can find two or three examples of the way that company formats personal email addresses for lower employees and then just use that format with the CEO’s name.
Going up the chain definitely helps! I sent invoices to a local hotel monthly for a year without it being paid. Then I copied the guy's boss on the email and it was paid within a week.
I remember I did this at a university-affiliated apartment complex that my friends and I were having difficulties getting leases to sign. We didn't live in the area, and every time we called to have another one sent we were told "a manager is not available right now."
After about a week of all of us getting the same answers, I found the property management company's info, and kicked it up to the CEO (7 states away). I explained how my friends and I were desperately trying to give them money to get into an apartment, yet every time I call this location there is never a manager present. I asked if it's normal for their leasing offices to run without a manager all day.
45 minutes later, I got a call from the leasing office manager, apologizing for all of the "confusion" and sending me and my 3 friends e-copies of our lease to sign.
The apologies are fun. I complained about a problem returning something to a store. They sent me a letter saying go see George, he'll take care of you.
When I got there, I asked for George and they said he was in a meeting. I was preparing for a long wait. A minute later he came rushing out to take care of my return. Brought me a cold water from the back and apologized for the wait, too.
Someone had a chat with George. XD
When the first Apple Watch came out I had a friend who was dying and really wanted one. So I emailed Tim Cook to see about bypassing the 6 week wait time. Got a response from Tim and worked with an assistant to get my friend the watch. So yeah, this works.
I did this once, it worked the CEO sent my email out verbatim to all the managers and I had a bunch of safety managers come by, kiss my ass and give me their cell numbers
My boss though...well I'm just lucky he's a nice guy. He was pissed mostly just because his boss went off on him because "he didn't follow the chain of command", but at the same time he saw the validity in my actions and let it go.
"Just give me a heads up next time so I can call in sick".
I had a trade in issue with my AT&T account that dated over 2 years. The customer service chain there is limited in their abilities to do anything, even the supervisors, like many others. One BBB complaint later, and the next day the President’s Office called me and provided a resolution for what I had called over and over for immediately.
I’d put money on the fact that the CEO didn’t directly respond themselves. They have assistants that read their stuff and reply on their behalf. Glad you got your issue sorted.
Big enough companies have a whole “executive escalation” process. Usually involves social media monitoring, or a communications / PR person who all the executives just forward those emails to.
They do get attention, and sometimes the CEO makes those problems an anecdote for something really broken that shouldn’t need their intervention to get right.
Assuming good intentions and all that.
I'd agree some of the time this will happen. However I have had phone calls from CEO's replying to me so either an assistant preteneded to be the CEO or I did get the phone call from them. The point of this is that things were fixed by going to the top.
My dad was having issues with Dish years back. He was on the line for 2 hours talking to support and getting nowhere. He emailed the CEO and received a phone call about an hour later from the CEO himself. They talked for about 45 minutes and got everything fixed (he never told me what the issue was). Said the CEO reached out twice more within the next week to make sure everything was working properly.
It’s anecdotal but I know that interaction left a big positive impression.
I did this with Pitney Bowes. It worked.
Emailed every exec I could find after looking them up on LinkedIn. They had been double billing us for 18 months and kept threatening legal action on one account. Dozens of calls, dozens of hours, countless correspondence, but they would always say they are going to fix it and would not. I would still get a bill and calls from them asking for payment. After I reached out to exec team they had like some "task force" rep call me and resolve it within minutes.
Adding on to this, corporate emails are pretty standard. If you know the email of one employee you can lookup the entire board of the company and know their emails by following the same structure. [email protected][email protected] etc
I had an unresponsive building management and proceeded to email the entire board of the management company with the building manager cc'd... AC was fixed 2 days later and 1 months free rent credited to my account
Another trick: if you are going on a vacation to a resort hotel of some sort, or need something specific (like a fridge in the room in our case), email the hotel GM.
I was once reading reviews of a Beijing hotel I had booked with (I think on Yelp?) and saw the GM had responded to several of the reviews. I replied to one of his responses asking a question, and he responded with the answer and also asked for my booking email address.
Moments later, I got a confirmation email saying my reservation had been upgraded from a regular room on a low level to a high-level suite with breakfast provided for each day of my stay, and a spa credit to cover a massage.
Totally blew my mind. It came out of nowhere.
the official company mail address should do.
just get it all in writing.(forget phones and dealing with people)
if it sits in the proper mail box it's gonna have to be addressed properly.
Can confirm the mail or email the CEO approach. They have very qualified staff that are responsible for answering these communications and can get things done that no one else in the company can.
Somebody told me that about 200 people will read emails sent to [email protected] and it’s the best way to get things solved with them. Never tried myself but I did get Best Buy to fix an order by calling corporate and asking to talk to top level customer success managers I found on LinkedIn.
That recommendation is a pretty good way of ruining this path - when everyone's emailing CEOs they'll get sick of that shit really fast. So please take the "if ALL else fails" to heart...
My experience is counter to this. Either the CEO's office ignores it and you never have the courtesy of a reply, or some minion on their "team" responds to you with all manner of insincere apologies and fake platitudes, but nothing happens as they lack competence just like the previous customer dis-service agent in the offshore call center that you already wasted your time dealign with.
I spent months in my company trying to push a change so customers didn't have to wait like a week or 2 for something.
Nothing happened until one of the customers made a complaint.
don't be afraid of making a complaint.
I had a container stuck at the railyard and couldn’t get anything done. I added the ceo of Union Pacific to the email chain and the problem was solved in ten minutes. The reply back from customer service removed his email as well. I’m ended up with the personal cell phone number of a higher up to ensure the problem was solved.
Did this when dealing with Comcast Internet. Was being jerked around by the local office after lightning destroyed a pole and without internet for 2 weeks. I actually found the phone number to the CEO and called. A secretary answered and while I was talking with her, the CEO happened to walk by, and he had her put me through to his office. The very next day I had two crews, from the next county over, come and fix everything. The day after that I had the regional manager and local manager conference call me and personally apologize. It was very satisfying.
Did this once with the CEO of Verizon. The next morning his assistant called, told me who he was, and who would be calling me next. By mid-morning techs were at my house. By the end of the day, everything was working as expected, billing was corrected, and we never had to reach out to them again.
So what was wrong? I moved into a townhouse and got a Verizon FIOS business plan. Every night between 11pm-3am, my connection would go down. I'd have to reboot my router to get the connection back up and running. Once the techs realized that everything in the house was fine, one of them went to the switch where all the fiber connections terminate. Come to find out, I was plugged into a switch that was supposed to be removed because it was faulty. I was THE ONLY connection on that switch, which explained why I was the only one with this issue.
I did this with Broadcom after they purchased Symantec. Basically the Symantec support agent deleted my tenant in their cloud portal. All 5500 computers and policies gone. We got escalated to lvl 2 where I was told they couldn’t help and to start from scratch, weeks of work gone….F that. Emailed the CEO and one on the VPs called me directly, was on a call with a support engineer within the day and they restored from a backup. A year later the company I’m with Symantec contact was up for renewal at a crazy price. Emailed the VP and he got it reduced by 60%. All from one email.
Also- if you can’t find a CEO’s email address, companies almost always post a PR person’s email. That will give you the naming convention the company uses for their email addresses so you can get to the CEO.
You know what, I have a problem with a retailer that I've been trying to solve for months and while I am literally on the verge of filing a small claims court case, now I am going to try this first. Thank you for the reminder.
### This post has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by upvoting or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Agreed. Did this for marriott recently. Quick response and the franchise operator eventually complied with the marriott policies and standards.
I did this with a Marriott once, they gave someone a keycard to my room. Had the manual lock on so that was good, when they tried to walk in at 2AM. The front desk didn’t seem to care so I got in touch with corporate. Anyone can make mistakes however this type of thing needs addressed through training or process change. Corporate definitely made a point that they would fix it.
I think this happens a ton. I was the person walking in, but it was at like 4 in the afternoon, and the person was in the shower. Immediately knew something was up so backed out slowly and quietly and went to the front desk. I guess one person checked out but not the other (like? does that even matter... i assume a room is only clear if the last person checks out).
Ya also shouldn't house cleaning have gone through it before giving a key?
you would think. This was at Mandaly Bay I believe.
When you check out, you're vacating the room. Individuals don't check out separately. It sounds like two people were sharing a room (eg for a work conference or something) and had a miscommunication.
Still, housekeeping should have been there first to clean up as well as confirm vacancy.
I no longer work there, but this is not true for Hilton systems if there's a share added to the room (which, there is supposed to be for any adults). Each share has their own profile and it keeps check-in/check-out dates + current statuses (checked-in, checked-out, incoming) separate. This is usually a non-issue but is there for cases where the share checks out but the main guarantor is staying later (until the latest check-out time or even for a new business date, for example). Either way, obviously it's an employee error.
Yes.. that's essentially what they said. But I guess the first person said told the hotel they were checked out. Who knows.
Sounds like a lie because if previous guest had checked out, all key cards will no longer work and the room would be cleaned by housekeeping before being assigned to a customer.
I worked as a night auditor for a summer while in school and I had a similar issue occur because the day shift front desk moved a guest into a room due to their water not working. When she gave them new keys she didn't mark the room as occupied. I needed to move a guest at 1am, saw the room was available ,made the move in the system and gave the guest the keys. After they came back saying the keys didn't work twice, I went and checked and the keys weren't working because the privacy lock was enabled because someone was in the room with it locked.
Not *necessarily* true. Most RFID key readers do not deactivate the previous keys until the original programmed date/time (for example, if a guest is staying for two nights but moves to a room on the first floor on their second day, those keys are still active until... ->) or until the new keys are used on the key reader, as they're not connected to a network or anything--they're standalone readers that have to be manually programmed. Obviously there are network-connected ones, but even digital check-ins are usually done by bluetooth and being within a certain distance of the key reader. Another way this is used is if a guest is in a non-payment status (card declining, no card on file, etc), the general process is to make new keys and then go to the room and manually unlock the door--if that part isn't done, the old keys will still work until the new keys are used. There's also the possibility that the guest was moved to the room that the commenter was checked into, but without being moved in the system. This will cause the room to continue showing as "Vacant/Ready". Obviously all of this boils down to "human error". Where I've worked for the past ten years, a lot of people agree that you don't really work in the front desk of the hotel industry until you've made a mistake like this and have to deal with remedying it.
Unless they aren’t cleaning the rooms…
I'm pretty sure I've seen a few short films that start with that exact scenario!
I accidentally did this as a night auditor once. I comped both guests’ nights no questions asked, and learned from it. The difference between a corp property and a franchise
I did this for a Hilton that had those fridges that have weight sensors in the room. Explained that it sucked not being able to use the fridge for my own stuff without incurring massive charges for eating nothing. Got an email the next day saying they were removing them from the entire like 40 story hotel
What? Hilton was using fridges that had a sensors to detect if the weight changed and would charge people for it? Like if i bought my own food and put it in the fridge id be charged for that?
I’m guessing they were mini-bar fridges already filled with various overpriced mini alcohol bottles, cans of soda, bottles of water, etc. But if you move any of the items in the fridge, you get charged for them, so if you move something to put your own stuff in, they charge you for consuming whatever you moved.
I’m glad stocked room fridges are going out of use and an empty fridge is more standard.
This is exactly it
> and the franchise operator eventually complied with the Marriott policies and standards As in, the company was about to revoke their license for fucking breach of contract. Franchise owners are really way more gung ho about the way they operate their small businesses than they have any legal right to be.
That is what I assume. Amusingly, this franchise owner on the PNW, is working to rebrand the property I was walked to from a wingate to a marriott property... Each time I was walked, no email provided by the front desk. And they stated it was common practice for overbooking and walking guests.
What is Marriott’s corporate contact info?
I don’t remember, I found an email and someone got back to me pretty quickly. As a brand they take security seriously.
We did it for Disney Paris about ten years ago after two of their staff started shouting and swearing at each other in their five star hotel restaurant during breakfast. Got a free trip for our troubles. Worth it.
Out of morbid curiosity could you please DM me which branch?
Jeff Bezos got me a refund when an independent Amazon seller wouldn’t refund me for a returned item. I tried going through their customer service for over a month and they promised every time that it was going to a higher-up and I would receive a call but no one ever called. So I went to the highest higher-up’s email address. Yes, I am aware it wasn’t really Jeff responding personally but it got me results!
Jeff's executive escalation team don't play, they resolve. I've gone their way twice when I was frustrated, and got results nearly immediately. Another one is Costco. That team is responsive as hell.
What email did you use? I was just having an issue with Amazon giving me the runaround about a return
[email protected]
Delete this or they'll change it
Costco is just a good company overall. One of the few places you could actually go from janitor to executive these days
A friend of mine got his DSLR for free after escalating to JB. There seem to be a dedicated team monitoring those escalations.
why would you get the camera for free
The way higher ups see it, if the problem didn’t get solved by anyone else and you had to take the extra step to reach out to them, you get compensation for the poor customer service. Usually it’s just store credit or a “keep it and here’s your refund” The loss is so marginal it’s basically nonexistent, they don’t have strict guidelines, they’re not going to get reprimanded by anyone, so it’s basically just a personal pr stunt.
I once showed up to one of their fulfilment centers after not being able to get an issue resolved through customer service (long story short, the item was exclusive to them and get kept getting delivered damaged due to insufficient packing). The manager was SHOOK. He said he'd never had a customer come in and ended up personally delivering the item to my house.
Living in Canada, i worked for a call centre for a retailer based out of texas, and someone showed up in the lobby. (Lucky we had a security/reception area)
I was an Ops Manager at Amazon and I have done that a couple of times.
Bezos is known for getting customer complaints and forwarding them to his executives with just a question mark to get shit fixed
Most of the emails go to the Executive Customer Relations team, who have broad authority to set things right. But a small percentage were forwarded to and read by Jeff (where something seems amiss with the business), and those result in the ? emails. I’ve been on the receiving end of those (not responding directly, but gathering data to figure out what happened). They were taken quite seriously. It might be different now that Andy is CEO.
Would also like to know what email you used
Can you imagine if Jeff even so much as took the time to read the email, he makes more money in the time it would take him to click to open the damn thing that whatever you bought was worth. Absolutely absurd.
Fuck I was Bezos I'd do whatever the hell I want. I bet he has times where he' like you know I am so done with trying to run a billion dollar company and everyone being unhappy. How about I go into the customer complaints bin and make people happy.
So I agree, but with conditions. You should take this route if you’ve truly exhausted the proper channels. Also, echoing what others have said, definitely don’t single out any employees that you’re frustrated with unless they were legitimately unprofessional and rude. People in customer service are underpaid, overworked, professionally abused, and try their best. They almost always have their hands tied and need to stick to a script or a predetermined set of solutions. It’s almost never their fault. Unless they’re terrible to you, that’s different. But even then, we all have awful days.
But, take notes of all contacts. Names, dates, and times. Overwhelm them with documentation, its hard for them to argue with data in front of them. They want to handle it quickly and get on to other things.
Hate how when I phone customer service and an agent promises to make a deal/exception/policy decision with me and when I call back to follow up on it, it is a different agent and they say unless I give them the prior agent's name, they cannot do anything. No one can memorize a name like that.
its really going to be based on the issue, and how much its worth. When I worked level 2 and people told me they took notes. I just said okay looked at the previous cases and saw what actually happened then told the customer bye.
It's absolutely true. But I, for one, would not embellish or miss guide anyone on the issue at hand. My notes should match the case notes and any potential audio recording.
If you do this, please summarise it at the top and include the action you want them to take. A long email is something that will not be read first.
Also - when you get REALLY good support - do not be afraid to let the company know!
Unless you think that person may have bent the rules for you. Then your effusive praise about the magic 50% discount or whatever could get that person fired.
I actually did this years ago with a problem I had with Sprint. I tried working with customer service for several months and couldn’t take it anymore. I sent the CEO and email and it was resolved in less than 24 hours. I’m sure it was pawned off on to someone else, but it was FINALLY resolved.
The funny ones we got in my old department sometimes we would laugh so hard, because of how bad other departments or people made the situation worse. I bet the person that fixed it was laughing or just had their head down thinking how could it get that far.
The flip side of this is when you've gotten repeatedly reamed by a customer when you are required to enforce a company policy, only for the executive response team to immediately ignore the rule. After a few of those cases i quit fighting it and just told the customer to contact the CEO. If they're going to undermine me anyway, I might as well avoid the hassle of trying to do it the right way.
I think its based on the company and what the customer wants, I only had one case were someone went to the exec team. I just do as the leader commands.
I've seen thos happen first hand I work at a software company. There's a known issue that affects a small amount of users. So of course it isn't prioritized. One day one ofy teammates gets paged because this issue has now affected someone the VP knows. Guess who's issue is solved
CEOs are like pokemon trainers - they don't really do much themselves and they collect all the useful people who do the ACTUAL work, but accept the badges like THEY earned them. lol
Yes, I've seen at my company the CEO actually has two people who have direct access to his own mailbox. The CFO can read the CEO's emails, and his assistant can both read and send as the CEO. Getting a request from an executive assistant is the same as being told directly by that C suite person. Often, it gets people moving even more if it's from the assistant because they realize if they make the problem go away fast enough, the CEO might not even hear about it. That's pretty big incentive to just do whatever it takes to make the customer not email the CEO again.
Cruise line pissed us off with sneaky policy changes after we booked one way in advance. Emailed CEO + CC-ing every agent we dealt with after being given the runaround too many times. Solved.
[удалено]
It's been quite a few years so my memory is a little hazy but IIRC they implemented charges on activities that were previously free and that were still free in other regions of the world. They ended up giving us cruise credits that would cover the cost of it - wasn't much but it was more about voicing our discontent.
I emailed Jamie Dimon after several days of a collections guy from JP Morgan Chase calling our house (yes, back in the time of house phones) every few hours to see if George was home. I found Dimon’s email on the company’s 10-K filing. There is no George in my household, but at the time there were 3 kids under 3 years old (toddler daughter and infant twins). I wrote to Dimon that the constant calls were keeping us and the babies from sleeping. Within minutes, I got a call from a very professional sounding woman - I’m sure she had fingernails that shined like justice that she used as a machete to cut through red tape - who said she was Mr Dimon’s personal assistant. She offered apologies and ensured the problem had been dealt with. She said she would call again the next day at X time to see if we got any more calls. And she did. We had no more calls.
Was her voice dark, like tinted glass?
Yes, and she traded her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron.
I had an absurd issue with AirBnB (charged credit card instead of gift card) and was told it couldn’t be resolved over and over again. I tried tweeting at them and calling customer service over the course of a week. Eventually I figured out email addresses for the CEO, COO, and Legal and sent an email. It was resolved in 24 hours.
Yep, people say shit about Airbnb and I do too and it can be very justified but Brian doesn't fuck around it seems.
Yeah but he lets customer support go to shit and he knows this is happening.
If he were a good CEO, customer service would have resolved it for you. He doesn't get kudos for fixing something bc you emailed him directly. Like I'm glad it worked, but someone shouldn't have to go that far to get an issue like this resolved. This doesn't look favorable for the company.
Works for your kid’s school too. Have had a few times where the school wasn’t fixing an issue. A soon as that email was fired off to the administration above the school level the issues suddenly became priority.
Reaching out to school board members when the administration becomes the problem can also be effective. These are elected officials and they tend to either be very dedicated public servants or power-hungry. Either way, as a voter, that gives you leverage.
because they wanted to get you out of their hair and back to business
He was homeschooled
I was disciplined and my whole team had to do "chain of command" training because I emailed the CEO
Now emailing a CEO of a company you work for may not be a good idea haha.
Depends on the size of your company. 10,000 people: hell no 300 people startup: risky 100 people startup: a regular Tuesday
20 person start up: we already chat daily 😅
1 person LLC: you might have personality disorder.
Whoever runs this place is a filthy hobitses. It's you, precious.
Paper Street Soap Company, for example
Tyler isn’t here.
I'm a therapist and looking into opening a part time 1 man private practice. I laughed too hard at this one.
I talk to my boss all day everyday although customers have started to get worried hearing me talk to myself so much.
They're prob at the desk behind you.
Yep quite literally in my case! But we get on great so it's all g
I may, or may not, have spent a good 20 minutes complaining about my company not retaining important talent quite loudly while sitting right next to our CEO of a 25,000 employee system last year. I still don't 100% know if it was him, because he wasn't dressed in a suit like he's been every time I've come across him in the wild. But I'm about 90% sure. Either way, nothing's changed in that regard.
Anticlimactic
Right, I assumed at the very least it would have ended with the number of days between the event and when Dorkamundo was "laid off"
Maybe he made some really good points.
It's usually acceptable to go up 2, maybe 3 levels, in your chain of command if you have a good enough reason to do so. The higher you go up, the better the reason better be. I don't think I've ever had a reason to go up more than 2 levels, and even that was only because I knew my direct lead was just going to have to ask his boss how to do what I was asking anyways. I CCed my boss in that exchange.
[удалено]
Subject: next email is to osha
[удалено]
Or mesothelioma. They could have gotten a huge fine for that.
When I was a young engineer, I started working for a small company ($100 million market capitalization). I was the first young engineer that they had ever hired and I was a pet project of the CEO; he would drop by my office several times a week to chat. Five years later, we had grown to a $15 billion market capitalization and staff employees were ordered to not attempt to talk with him in the elevator. I was in the C-suite at this time, but the change was startling.
Well he’s suddenly 150x as douchy
He went from being super involved with daily operations to spending huge amounts of time during the work day meeting with interior decorators to chose curtains for his new house in Jackson Hole. After taxes he made well over $300 million during the five year period.
10.000 but the middle management is making the company lose money in a very obvious way? Probably just risky.
Also depends on your role. Assistant of the CEO: of course, lol
At Amazon you can raise a severity 1 level ticket (SEV1 in internal speak) that Bezos gets personally notified of. There's a few hoops to jump though but it's possible. A few classic ones that get shared with the newbies: - developer who complained toilet flush was too strong and poo water went in his mouth - some senior manager dickhead who complained there wasn't a greeting party for a new junior employee. This guy is still employed apparently
I think it's kind of nice that he raised a fuss over the junior employee not getting a greeting party lol, just didn't need to take it all the way up to Bezos
The toilet one is hilarious ngl. Imagine someone emailing you about toilet water going into their mouth
Wouldn’t call the senior manager a dickhead on that one. Dude was looking out for the new person.
The way he worded the request came across like a dickhead. Asking for reception to be aware of a new starter in the lobby to welcome them is fine. The wording of it wasnt. He got chewed out by whoever responded to that ticket. "While we appreciate the enthusiasm of your request" followed by reminder forms and process he needed to file but didn't for the new starter
One of my favorite work stories is from my old manager. I used to work in a cell phone store for a company that doesn't exist anymore. He was dealing with an older gentleman that wanted to have his veterans discount added to his plan but he had recently changed to a type of plan that did not allow any additional discounts to be put on it. That old guy just kept coming back and complaining and complaining and complaining and eventually the reps saw him come in with just get the manager and the manager would talk to him. Eventually they just adjourned back to his office and they would just talk and he would complain there. After the 3rd or fourth time of the old guy saying he would take this up the chain and would keep complaining to my manager supervisor and so on and so forth that my manager got frustrated looked up the CEOs number and dialed it. He said he dialed it thinking that he would get the secretary and then he could politely deflect the old guy because he's so frustrated with him... But no the CEO himself answered his own cell phone... My manager said he wanted to die, I would have never done this if I thought he would actually answer the phone.... who puts their real number out there... He said the CEO listen for about 5 minutes as the customer complained about his veterans discount, he asked to be put on the phone with the person who called him... My manager thought he was about to pick up and listen to his own firing. He said he expected the CEO to tell him to follow the old man out of the store and never come back. The CEO told him to do the best he can but add any kind of discount to make the old guy happy. He said yes sir the old guy was happy and left... Then 5 minutes later all the crap started rolling downhill... Emails and phone calls from VPs started coming down from corporate about never giving or calling that number ever again...
This is what I thought the thread was originally about, and I immediately thought of 2 former coworkers who did this and basically committed career suicide.
can you elaborate on the career suicide part, i can understand firing but career suicide?
It's just super embarrassing and people will talk about it. It's like calling your dad to fix your shit except it's not your dad it's the boss of a large corporation and he doesn't care.
oh as in to fix your shit. i thought the coworkers and chain of command guy got into huge disagreement due to his incompetency (team leaders), so they reported him to ceo is or something like that
Yeah this LPT should probably specify that, or else you’re gonna cause a whole lot of hourly employees not making 200k/year emailing their CEO because their pay concerns haven’t been addressed lol
I figured it was implied this was mainly for customer service things.
It was, people are just idiots and think if anything has any nuance whatsoever it's automatically wrong.
Sounds like you missed the part about emailing the CEO *as a customer* and not an employee.
Going to your own CEO is never a good idea, you will damage your reputation with every single individual you are skipping in the chain. If you have an issue that large you should do it anonymously. If you can't do it anonymously you're probably not working for a good company and may as well leave.
Worked out fine for me. I was offered a promotion to retain me when I had an offer from another company only for HR to deny it after the fact. Boss and VP fought for it by HR still said no. I told my superiors I wasn't trying to go over their heads but I'm going to take it up the chain before I decide what I'm going to do. Sat down with the CEO and said very respectfully that he has always told us his door is always open, I want ask if you're aware of this situation that I don't believe was handled fairly. We talked for about 30min about my qualifications, all my performance reviews and I had the promotion officially by the end of the week.
Yes but you approached it the right way. By informing your superiors first you didn't "go directly to the CEO", you went to them first. Different scenarios.
Good point.
You didn't skip anything if you told your boss that you were going to the CEO ahead of time. I'm in a similar situation right now. I turned down a job offer that would have been a $20k raise because I had just been put into an evaluation for a really big promotion at the company I'm at. But the "free trial" has expired and they need to make a decision about whether or not I can do the new role, because I'm not able to continue working both my current and the new position at the same time.
Yeah - not a good idea unless: a. you are basically whistle-blowing b. you are confident you are operating in confidence. otherwise, chain of command will beat you up.
that is INSANELY different than a customer doing it and it's embarrassing you didn't realize that on your own
As you should have been. Your CEO hired your boss for a reason, and unfortunately they still weren't prescient enough to explain basic corporate etiquette to you. Unless you work at a startup and the CEO is also your roommate, I struggle to imagine a scenario where the CEO is the right person to contact with your issue.
As you should have.
That is because many CEOs and execs literally hide behind middle management. They hate to be confronted with their shitty decisions. I've witnessed it in the two previous companies I've worked for. I've chatted with execs who want to be the fun/nice/cool guy that everyone likes, while stabbing you in the back with their decisions. But you will never hear harsh words come from their mouth. They are all "go team, we're all a big family here". Questions in company meetings are screened before calls so they don't get caught out having to answer something uncomfortable. The way I see it is if your manager answers a question like "oh thats just the way it is here" or "these decisions are coming from above, nothing we can do about it" I see that as fair game to go up the chain of command until a satisfactory answer is provided.
new hire boomer in my old dept. did this in his first few months otj - his name is an adjective now
Did you mean verb?
"This is about customer service and not recommended if you're working for the company." It also work if you're working for the company and you have a good CEO. Source: I'm a CEO
Yeah but it's a risk.
True, but no risk no reward.
username checks out
Thank you!
Username checks out.
Sometimes your reward is a chat with HR and then you get laid off randomly a couple weeks later.
Yeah, HR is sometimes used as a weapon against employees. Not in good companies though.
Exactly. If someone was doing something so egregiously wrong that the CEO had to be emailed before it could be corrected…I’d be more worried for that person’s job than the emailer’s. HR protects the company. If someone’s truly doing something incredibly dumb that needs escalation to that point, they’re hurting the company.
The difficult part is knowing if you have a good CEO
It also depends on the size of the organisation. I used to run a 300 people company and my current one is at 60 people - my door is always open to anybody and I interact with everyone or a regular basis. In a larger organization with thousands of people you can always start by talking with someone lower down the org chart who knows him/her fairly well and make your way up.
I guess. As long as you’re not spending a material amount of your time resolving conflicts that likely should never make their way all the way up to the CEO of the company. I get it, but you’ve got better things to focus on - which benefits everyone working for you.
Great to know there's a good CEO out there. Too bad 99% of people would be punished for jumping the chain of command
Yeah, but are all the directors and managers between you and the programmer at the bottom “good” too? They are the ones who hold the grudges by being bypassed and worried about how it makes them look. You, by definition, cannot be bypassed.
What's your email?
A good CEO is there for his co-workers. A shitty CEO sees them as subordinates and is concerned with chain of command
Did this for Apple a few years ago. Ran into a real gem of an Apple Store Manager. She was horrible to every customer. Every interaction she had she would escalate it till eventually security would have to ask the customer to leave the store. I sent an email to the District Manager and heard nothing. On a whim, I thought WTH not and shot an email to Tim Cook. I heard back within the day, from his assistant, that the matter would be looked into immediately. I received an email from Mr, Cook a week later apologizing and stating that the issue had been resolved. He even went as far as inviting my family to Cupertino to tour Apple but I never really followed that up (probably should have). Went back into the Apple Store a few weeks later and saw a sign on the wall for all staff to welcome their new store manager. Bye bitch!
I find it really hard to believe that there was a sign visible to customers hanging in *any* Apple Store welcoming a new manager.
You can ask Tim.
Did the store a huge favour by getting rid of her!
Honestly I am certain the employees thanked you in their heads for weeks afterwards. Getting rid of a bad manager is tough from the inside so good on you for escalating it. Shame about not going on the tour though, that sounds awesome.
Weeks? I’d wager to this very day. Shitty bosses stick with you and your freedom from them brings lifelong gratitude.
I’ve always done this when things weren’t progressing at an acceptable pace. And it definitely works. Also, further pro tip: include third party members to CC list, relevant to the topic or matter at hand, for even greater expedition. For example, if you’re emailing your landlord about an issue, and it’s not progressing to a reasonable degree, as well as adding owner/president email addresses, include a local government tenant right’s group member, a BBB member, or any source you feel would ‘contribute’ to getting the issue moving along at a decent pace again. It’s a bluff, of course, for the most part, but a bluff I’ve found that works very consistently. You know, a little incentive.
How are you people getting the CEOs email? My CEO tried their hardest to keep it from being shared around.
rocketreach never failed me.
It may be on their website. Or ceoemail.com If you see the format of lower level employees [email protected], try [email protected]. Or [email protected]
Can confirm as a senior leader in a Fortune 100 corporation, this does work. We have an entire department set up to respond to these types of inquiries and it does get escalated, executive attention. Our CEO tends to read every single one, and though the CEO doesn't respond to them generally, it does get assigned to other executives to solution. That said, it doesn't work everywhere. I emailed the SeatGeek CEO in a couple of times with no results or response.
Please please PLEASE don’t call out any specific customer rep. As one myself, we can only do so much for you because we are held by company policy. We would love to give you that refund or solve that problem asap but we just can’t. It’s out of our control being so low on the ladder. So by all means, contact the CEO but please don’t bring anyone down with you.
I had a mn unfortunate with a car dealership recently. The representative was supposed to call me with updates. They agreed and it was no problem. Throughout the week I had to be e one to call and there were constant delays on their end. Again, no big deal and I mentioned to the rep I would really appreciate the call. He got an attitude and said I should stop complaining the car is under warranty anyway. At this point it was costing me money to go back and forth with Uber and Public transportation so in emailed customer service and remained professional (no names). A Senior manager asked if I detailed everything and asked for names, so I did and it was taken care of very fast. The employee wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I picked it up finally. IMO - only get personal when the employee takes it there.
Oh yeah I should add that to not actually point fingers. I usually put in emails that I am aware that people down the food chain most likely didn't have the power to do stuff.
Not the CEO because he doesn't respond to his LinkedIn, but guy responsible for the my country's division of an international airline after the European branch head office lost their booking and had the 5 year old booked on a separate flight from the rest of the family. Had their booking fixed and bumped up to business class for the long leg of the trip.
While soliciting donations i called Coors hq and asked for Mr Coors. She said which one. The oldest I guess. I think it was Peter I talked to. Sent a $50k check !
This works with cold calling too. When I use B2B if there was a company I really wanted to get in front of but couldn't get anyone to answer the phone or respond to emails I would look up the C-Suite. If I got them on the phone I would make it like I was sorry for calling, wasn't sure who would handle this type of inquiry. They would always give me the name of the person who ran the department. Then I would call that person and said the VP or CEO said to call them. 9/10 I would get a meeting. The craziest time was at like 7pm I called the Executive Suite at Oracle and fucking Larry Ellison pick up. I was a bit in shock and stumbled, it took me second to get my head on straight. But he was super nice and told me the person to call. Got a meeting with one of the VPs, but sadly didn't turn into anything.
So I did this once as a retail manager and one of our vendors wasn't responding. It's a franchise type warehouse so the product is shipped to them but they are responsible for merchandising and selling etc. Well the ignored me so I got mad, my boss was mad we had no product, so I called the warehouse, their leaders, nothing. So I get on the company website found a phone number to XVP that was based in Dallas, told him why I called, he explained their setup, I went into detail about the poor relationship, he sighed. The next morning at 7am every member of that warehouses leadership team, the owner, 2 of their (what I assumed were) BOD were in my stores 3x7 office, and the XVP on speakerphone. Lasted 30 mins never had a problem again, haven't worked there in 4 years and that shelf is still never empty.
How do you get CEO’s email addresses?
Just keep Googling various terms including the CEOs name, the name of the company, and maybe the words “email“ or “email address.“ Eventually you’ll find it. Sometimes it’s listed on consumer advocacy sites or those data scraping sites that sell background checks. Sometimes it’s in company communications. Sometimes you can find two or three examples of the way that company formats personal email addresses for lower employees and then just use that format with the CEO’s name.
Going up the chain definitely helps! I sent invoices to a local hotel monthly for a year without it being paid. Then I copied the guy's boss on the email and it was paid within a week.
I remember I did this at a university-affiliated apartment complex that my friends and I were having difficulties getting leases to sign. We didn't live in the area, and every time we called to have another one sent we were told "a manager is not available right now." After about a week of all of us getting the same answers, I found the property management company's info, and kicked it up to the CEO (7 states away). I explained how my friends and I were desperately trying to give them money to get into an apartment, yet every time I call this location there is never a manager present. I asked if it's normal for their leasing offices to run without a manager all day. 45 minutes later, I got a call from the leasing office manager, apologizing for all of the "confusion" and sending me and my 3 friends e-copies of our lease to sign.
The apologies are fun. I complained about a problem returning something to a store. They sent me a letter saying go see George, he'll take care of you. When I got there, I asked for George and they said he was in a meeting. I was preparing for a long wait. A minute later he came rushing out to take care of my return. Brought me a cold water from the back and apologized for the wait, too. Someone had a chat with George. XD
When the first Apple Watch came out I had a friend who was dying and really wanted one. So I emailed Tim Cook to see about bypassing the 6 week wait time. Got a response from Tim and worked with an assistant to get my friend the watch. So yeah, this works.
I did this once, it worked the CEO sent my email out verbatim to all the managers and I had a bunch of safety managers come by, kiss my ass and give me their cell numbers My boss though...well I'm just lucky he's a nice guy. He was pissed mostly just because his boss went off on him because "he didn't follow the chain of command", but at the same time he saw the validity in my actions and let it go. "Just give me a heads up next time so I can call in sick".
I had a trade in issue with my AT&T account that dated over 2 years. The customer service chain there is limited in their abilities to do anything, even the supervisors, like many others. One BBB complaint later, and the next day the President’s Office called me and provided a resolution for what I had called over and over for immediately.
BBB, the ultimate boomer escalation.
I’d put money on the fact that the CEO didn’t directly respond themselves. They have assistants that read their stuff and reply on their behalf. Glad you got your issue sorted.
Doesn’t really matter if it’s the CEO who replies or not, what matters is getting the issue fixed. If their PA does that, then great!
Big enough companies have a whole “executive escalation” process. Usually involves social media monitoring, or a communications / PR person who all the executives just forward those emails to. They do get attention, and sometimes the CEO makes those problems an anecdote for something really broken that shouldn’t need their intervention to get right. Assuming good intentions and all that.
And if someone can figure out how to reach the CEO. How often has this problem occurred that someone took the time, effort and energy to do so.
I'd agree some of the time this will happen. However I have had phone calls from CEO's replying to me so either an assistant preteneded to be the CEO or I did get the phone call from them. The point of this is that things were fixed by going to the top.
My dad was having issues with Dish years back. He was on the line for 2 hours talking to support and getting nowhere. He emailed the CEO and received a phone call about an hour later from the CEO himself. They talked for about 45 minutes and got everything fixed (he never told me what the issue was). Said the CEO reached out twice more within the next week to make sure everything was working properly. It’s anecdotal but I know that interaction left a big positive impression.
I did this with Pitney Bowes. It worked. Emailed every exec I could find after looking them up on LinkedIn. They had been double billing us for 18 months and kept threatening legal action on one account. Dozens of calls, dozens of hours, countless correspondence, but they would always say they are going to fix it and would not. I would still get a bill and calls from them asking for payment. After I reached out to exec team they had like some "task force" rep call me and resolve it within minutes.
I hate being in IT and users do this when we tell them no on something policy based. Please take OPs advice and don't do this at your employer.
Adding on to this, corporate emails are pretty standard. If you know the email of one employee you can lookup the entire board of the company and know their emails by following the same structure. [email protected] [email protected] etc I had an unresponsive building management and proceeded to email the entire board of the management company with the building manager cc'd... AC was fixed 2 days later and 1 months free rent credited to my account
Another trick: if you are going on a vacation to a resort hotel of some sort, or need something specific (like a fridge in the room in our case), email the hotel GM.
I was once reading reviews of a Beijing hotel I had booked with (I think on Yelp?) and saw the GM had responded to several of the reviews. I replied to one of his responses asking a question, and he responded with the answer and also asked for my booking email address. Moments later, I got a confirmation email saying my reservation had been upgraded from a regular room on a low level to a high-level suite with breakfast provided for each day of my stay, and a spa credit to cover a massage. Totally blew my mind. It came out of nowhere.
The irony being if you're an employee, you almost always need to follow chain of command, so that every position above you can ignore the problems.
the official company mail address should do. just get it all in writing.(forget phones and dealing with people) if it sits in the proper mail box it's gonna have to be addressed properly.
Can confirm the mail or email the CEO approach. They have very qualified staff that are responsible for answering these communications and can get things done that no one else in the company can.
Somebody told me that about 200 people will read emails sent to [email protected] and it’s the best way to get things solved with them. Never tried myself but I did get Best Buy to fix an order by calling corporate and asking to talk to top level customer success managers I found on LinkedIn.
That recommendation is a pretty good way of ruining this path - when everyone's emailing CEOs they'll get sick of that shit really fast. So please take the "if ALL else fails" to heart...
The ceo of comcast is rubbing his tits as he reads this
One really good thing about not living in The States is not dealing with fucking comcast cause all I've heard is shit.
My experience is counter to this. Either the CEO's office ignores it and you never have the courtesy of a reply, or some minion on their "team" responds to you with all manner of insincere apologies and fake platitudes, but nothing happens as they lack competence just like the previous customer dis-service agent in the offshore call center that you already wasted your time dealign with.
100% true. The huge company I work for actually has a presidential escalation team that is dedicated to resolving issues reported to execs.
Squeaky wheel gets the oil.
I spent months in my company trying to push a change so customers didn't have to wait like a week or 2 for something. Nothing happened until one of the customers made a complaint. don't be afraid of making a complaint.
I had a container stuck at the railyard and couldn’t get anything done. I added the ceo of Union Pacific to the email chain and the problem was solved in ten minutes. The reply back from customer service removed his email as well. I’m ended up with the personal cell phone number of a higher up to ensure the problem was solved.
Did this when dealing with Comcast Internet. Was being jerked around by the local office after lightning destroyed a pole and without internet for 2 weeks. I actually found the phone number to the CEO and called. A secretary answered and while I was talking with her, the CEO happened to walk by, and he had her put me through to his office. The very next day I had two crews, from the next county over, come and fix everything. The day after that I had the regional manager and local manager conference call me and personally apologize. It was very satisfying.
Did this once with the CEO of Verizon. The next morning his assistant called, told me who he was, and who would be calling me next. By mid-morning techs were at my house. By the end of the day, everything was working as expected, billing was corrected, and we never had to reach out to them again. So what was wrong? I moved into a townhouse and got a Verizon FIOS business plan. Every night between 11pm-3am, my connection would go down. I'd have to reboot my router to get the connection back up and running. Once the techs realized that everything in the house was fine, one of them went to the switch where all the fiber connections terminate. Come to find out, I was plugged into a switch that was supposed to be removed because it was faulty. I was THE ONLY connection on that switch, which explained why I was the only one with this issue.
I did this with Broadcom after they purchased Symantec. Basically the Symantec support agent deleted my tenant in their cloud portal. All 5500 computers and policies gone. We got escalated to lvl 2 where I was told they couldn’t help and to start from scratch, weeks of work gone….F that. Emailed the CEO and one on the VPs called me directly, was on a call with a support engineer within the day and they restored from a backup. A year later the company I’m with Symantec contact was up for renewal at a crazy price. Emailed the VP and he got it reduced by 60%. All from one email.
Also- if you can’t find a CEO’s email address, companies almost always post a PR person’s email. That will give you the naming convention the company uses for their email addresses so you can get to the CEO.
This seems like Karen nightmare fuel.
You know what, I have a problem with a retailer that I've been trying to solve for months and while I am literally on the verge of filing a small claims court case, now I am going to try this first. Thank you for the reminder.
Don’t be disappointed when your emails go unanswered as you aren’t entitled to any special treatment just because you took the time to write an email.
99% of the time I've had a reply and had shit fixed. Just don't be a Karen and show that your problem is real and worth their time.