Can Your Customers Get Access to Your Leaders?

Many of you, when you respond to the Burning Question, or just want to say hi, are surprised when I reply to your emails personally. 

"Oh, I assumed someone else handled your email" is something I hear a lot. 

Nope. It's me. Always me. It's always been me, for 30+ years. 

When you put a barrier between yourself and your customers, you fumble away the opportunity to build trust bonds and learn nuances that matter.

Sterling Ball

My friend Sterling Ball runs a musical instruments company, and a BBQ supplies company. For each, he has a thriving online community where enthusiasts ask questions and discuss issues. And Sterling himself is constantly in there providing answers and guiding people toward the next rung of success.

Does he have so much free time that he can just hang out in forums all day? Not at all. But he MAKES the time, because he knows that direct customer interaction is oxygen for smart business leaders. 

As Sterling says: "You have to keep your customers so close, you can smell them."

AND, when you make it clear to customers that leadership is listening (and reachable) it sends a powerful message about the primacy of customer attitudes on the business' values and trajectory. 

Umpqua Bank

Umpqua Bank, headquartered in Portland, was one of America's 50 largest retail banks, before merging in 2021. 

A focus on customer experience and making leadership accessible was a big part of their growth formula. 

In fact, every Umpqua Bank branch (nearly 400 locations), had a special phone where customers could press a single number and be connected to the CEO. Not the leader of the branch, the leader of the entire bank! 

Who answered? The CEO, Cort O'Haver, who explained to me that what he learned in those calls was invaluable to his understanding of real-word customer scenarios.

Otis Elevator

I've been doing a lot of work lately with Otis Elevator.

Their dynamic CEO, Judy Marks, is not protective of her email address. Quite the opposite. Indeed, every day she gets emails from Otis customers who need an assist, or a question answered. 

I was with her last week, in Atlanta, and she'd just finished helping a local customer who had an elevator outage issue. This isn't the local Otis technician. It's the CEO of a $3.6 billion business that operates in 200 countries!

She believes that the first priority for everyone at Otis is to help customers, whether that's specifically their job function or not. 

That belief creates a culture. And that culture, once fully flowered, changes customer attitudes and loyalty.

So in this issue, I ask you: "can your customers get access to YOUR leaders?"

If not, why not?

The Books Report

Tamsen Webster has done as much for my clarity of message as anyone alive. If you want to communicate with impact, verve, and precision, she is the sherpa guide you need. 

Her new book is Say What They Can't Unhear: The 9 Principles of Lasting Change is a must. Comes out Tuesday, but I'd pre-order now as it may sell out.

Here's my quote from inside the book: "An instant classic! Clear and captivating, this is the instruction manual for wielding the most important power you possess: the power to persuade."

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