Anyone ever contacted Stephen Hester (CEO of RBS/Natwest)?

innovate

Lokolo wrote: »

No I just think its plain rude.

LOL. IMO, if anything it plain rude it is when someome takes home several millions a year and doesn't care about each and every single customer that enables them to earn this sort of money.

Other than that, I know for a fact that brilliant CEOs actually quite like to hear from customers directly, rather than having customer experience reports filtered by people who have a vested interest in portraying that everything is honkey-dorey.

Nobody suggests that anyone should bypass CS and the formal complaints process. But if both of them fail, it is most certainly not rude to escalate the matter. It might be uncomfortable for the CS/complaints team folks, and the software developers who support them [badly] if they get escalated - - - but it's in their hands to prevent this from happening.

innovate

meer53 wrote: »

I frequently deal with complaining customers who ask to speak to my manager, or someone higher up the ladder than me. It's very easy to stop them in their tracks by just passing them on to a Team Leader. They just say more or less what i've said. The customer goes away happy in most cases, in the other cases we recommend they put in a formal complaint as per our procedures.

It's the same with emails, as long as whoever is making the complaint gets a response, it doesn't really matter who it's from or who signs it, as long as they think someone with authority is dealing with it, it could be the cleaner, they will never know.

I don't know which company you work for, but assuming it is an FTSE 100 company: if you think an email to your CEO's official email address will go unnoticed, or even passed back down to your manager/teamleader/yourself, you do - frankly - live in cloud cuckoo land. The only thing that will be passed back in the case of a justified complaint is a massive avalanche that quite a few people will find hard to escape. This isn't a threat, it's just reality. No customer with a justified complaint has to suffer from incompetent CS and complaint departments.

meer53

innovate wrote: »

I don't know which company you work for, but assuming it is an FTSE 100 company: if you think an email to your CEO's official email address will go unnoticed, or even passed back down to your manager/teamleader/yourself, you do - frankly - live in cloud cuckoo land. The only thing that will be passed back in the case of a justified complaint is a massive avalanche that quite a few people will find hard to escape. This isn't a threat, it's just reality. No customer with a justified complaint has to suffer from incompetent CS and complaint departments.

I never said they will go unnoticed, what i'm saying (along with most other posters) is that when the emails are received, they will be passed back to the department where the complaint originated to be resolved. A response may then be sent with the CEO's name on but will probably have been dealt with by someone else.

CEO's don't have time to deal with complaints emailed to them personally, thats not what they're paid for, they have staff that are paid specifically for that reason.

To think that CEO's actually resolve complaints is a bit naive really.

innovate

mulronie wrote: »

We as shareholders in RBS are not paying him to sit around all day managing consumer complaints or taking "helpful hints" from random members of the public!

Any email address either in the public domain or following the usual "rules" for email allocation in RBS will be read by some lowly members RBS's public relations team, who will probably dump your complaint into the usual complaints process.

You, like several others, seem to have completely missed the point - this thread is about what to do when the bank's formal complaints process has failed. People can take their complaints to the FOS [after 8 weeks] when this happens - but in any case, they should have used the 8 weeks efficiently by exploring all avenues within the company. More often than not, this will lead to a resolution before the FOS needs to be involved, saving the company money, and looking better in their complaints stats. All of which should be positive news for the shareholder, too.

Everyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock for a few years knows that each and every UK tax payer is an RBS shareholder nowadays. I am not sure what gives you the right to speak on behalf of "we as shareholders"- - - what you say certainly does not represent the view of at least one other shareholder, so please don't speak on behalf of all RBS shareholders again.

Nobody (apart from yourself) ever suggested anyone expects any CEO to "sit around all day managing consumer complaints". Also, your talking of "random members of the public" and "lowly members of staff" shows you are exceedingly arrogant and have no regard whatsoever for individuals.

There's also a good chance you are also badly informed. E.g. complaints from retail customers aren't handled by "lowly members" of the PR team [none of them would probably be considered as "lowly" by anyone but you]. There is an Executive complaints team in basically every FTSE 100 company, nothing whatsoever to do with the PR team, that will manage critical complaints, with a view of settling them before they become a PR issue, or worse.

pmduk wrote: »

It's even more amusing that the OP believes Stephen Hester has any involvement in retail. He'd be better escalating the matter to the FOS as has been suggested already.

The buck stops with Stephen Hester, whether he likes to hear about Retail customers or not. Anyone writing to his email with a valid complaint will get a resolution a great deal faster, and most likely also a lot more satisfactory, than going the FOS route without first addressing Mr Hester (or his email address, lol).

Why are you guys so precious about people taking their complaints to the boss of a company? Have you got anything to fear?

innovate

meer53 wrote: »

I never said they will go unnoticed, what i'm saying (along with most other posters) is that when the emails are received, they will be passed back to the department where the complaint originated to be resolved. A response may then be sent with the CEO's name on but will probably have been dealt with by someone else.

Absolutely, someone else is likely to respond (though I know of a couple of cases where Ben Verwayen, Ian Livingstone's predessor at BT, personally responded with interim status messages to customer complaints). Rarely, more likely never, will this be the "normal" complaints team, or CS. There is an "Executive Complaints Team" (or whatever they may be called) in each and every FTSE 100 company. And great PAs in other companies (as well as in the FTSE 100 cos).

The point is that you get your complaint being looked at by people who are a lot more empowered to make decisions that are in both, the customer's and the company's interest. This generally leads to a satisfactory resolution of issues that can not be revolved by the "normal" complaints teams.

meer53 wrote: »

CEO's don't have time to deal with complaints emailed to them personally, thats not what they're paid for, they have staff that are paid specifically for that reason.

CEOs are paid - generally rather handsomely - for anything and everything that their company does. They are perfectly capable to delegate all sorts of jobs and decisions, but ultimately, the buck stops with them.

It's like when a football team doesn't win any titles - - the manager is the one who gets fired. If, oth, his team does well, he gets miilions and may be a knighthood.

meer53 wrote: »

To think that CEO's actually resolve complaints is a bit naive really.

We might have to agree to disagree on this one - I think it is very naive to think that any CEO doesn't care about complaints - and specifically about complaints that were addressed to their own official email address, or sent by letter addressed to them.

meer53

innovate wrote: »

Absolutely, someone else is likely to respond (though I know of a couple of cases where Ben Verwayen, Ian Livingstone's predessor at BT, personally responded with interim status messages to customer complaints). Rarely, more likely never, will this be the "normal" complaints team, or CS. There is an "Executive Complaints Team" (or whatever they may be called) in each and every FTSE 100 company. And great PAs in other companies (as well as in the FTSE 100 cos).

The point is that you get your complaint being looked at by people who are a lot more empowered to make decisions that are in both, the customer's and the company's interest. This generally leads to a satisfactory resolution of issues that can not be revolved by the "normal" complaints teams.


CEOs are paid - generally rather handsomely - for anything and everything that their company does. They are perfectly capable to delegate all sorts of jobs and decisions, but ultimately, the buck stops with them.

It's like when a football team doesn't win any titles - - the manager is the one who gets fired. If, oth, his team does well, he gets miilions and may be a knighthood.



We might have to agree to disagree on this one - I think it is very naive to think that any CEO doesn't care about complaints - and specifically about complaints that were addressed to their own official email address, or sent by letter addressed to them.

I agree with your points, but i never said that CEO's don't care, of course they do. I just think that people who think because they email them directly, that they are going to deal with it personally are under a misapprehension in the majority of cases.

ScottHeron

OP >>> Get a life pal!

baffledsalmon

Wow! People are still talking about this! Well, I had a call yesterday from some manager within Customer Care. The email HAD been picked up and they were very apologetic. They've offered me compensation in the form of £1,000 into my account. I'll enjoy spending that whilst you lot are whinging!

ScottHeron

baffledsalmon wrote: »

Wow! People are still talking about this! Well, I had a call yesterday from some manager within Customer Care. The email HAD been picked up and they were very apologetic. They've offered me compensation in the form of £1,000 into my account. I'll enjoy spending that whilst you lot are whinging!

LOL... Have fun buddy

Curious1984-

baffledsalmon wrote: »

I contacted Stephen Hester on Sunday via email... has anyone ever done this and if so, how long did he take to reply? I sent my email to [EMAIL="Stephen.Hester@rbs.com"]Stephen.Hester@rbs.com[/EMAIL] and [EMAIL="Stephen.Hester@rbs.co.uk"]Stephen.Hester@rbs.co.uk[/EMAIL] - have I got the right address?
Thanks

Hiya, can I ask how you addressed him and the tone in which you wrote your email to get such a great response? I am just about to email him and am after some guidance, thanks!