It's a legitimate question -- many companies spend a lot of time passing the buck to one department or the other while customers give up on getting service.
It was a provocative comment to one of my posts a couple of weeks ago by Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! that made me think about it.
This is the subject of my weekly FC Expert post on customer conversation. After you read that post -- it's brief, I promise -- let's come back here and think together for a moment.
How can companies executive teams get in touch again with their customers and the issues they are facing?
In a recent Q&A with Paul Levy, the President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Toby Bloomberg discusses how Levy respects the mantra of social media by using transparency, authenticity, honesty and passion in his blog.
He shares thoughts on customer service concerns, his views on social issues and health insurance from a personal perspective. This, in other words, is his own publishing tool, not the hospital's.
While he makes no secret that he is the CEO of a Hospital, Levy feels that is easier to have an open dialogue through a personal tool that allows him to gather feedback from a variety of people throughout the world. This got me thinking.
At Fast Company I use Mendoza, the President of NetApp, as an example of how to reach out to customers. Mendoza is such a good listener, that his customers and employees tell him the truth. Part of the compliment they pay him is that they want to talk with him in person.
These are two high ranking company officers from different worlds/businesses who understand the value of having an open conversation with their customers.
The question is not who owns your customers. The question is who will make sure that the customers are heard and cared for?