Email for HSBC CEO or complaints?

colsten

Deleted_User said:

Emails to CEO won't be seen by the CEO even for a second (their PA will read them) and all the PA will do is forward the email to someone in an appropriate department (no it won't be some executive level team, it'll simply go to whatever department deals with complaints)

Good try to dissuade people from escalating their complaints  🤣

Speaking from my own experience with more than one case, you are wrong on both accounts. Whether a CEO responds in person depends very much on the case in hand - I would agree that most times they would not personally respond, and may be not even see the email in their inbox. Nonetheless, Executive action gets taken on complaints sent to a CEO.

eskbanker

Not sure it's useful to generalise in either direction on this - seems to me that the involvement of a CEO or executive team in dealing with complaints addressed to the CEO will inevitably vary according to the company, its size and culture, the individual him/herself at the top of the pile, and also, crucially, the nature of the complaint itself and how it's already been dealt with elsewhere within the organisation.

In this case, OP is just looking to direct her complaint to somewhere it'll be seen, solely because of technical issues hindering her attempts to use the online form, so, unless OP majors on the website problems rather than the substance of the complaint, this isn't really escalation as such and my suspicion would be that it'll be routed to the usual customer services team, but perhaps OP will come back and update....

Sandtree

Deleted_User said:

Emails to CEO won't be seen by the CEO even for a second (their PA will read them) and all the PA will do is forward the email to someone in an appropriate department (no it won't be some executive level team, it'll simply go to whatever department deals with complaints). I'm sure there will be a response "from" the CEO saying they are sorry you are unhappy blah blah, copy/paste and that will be the last they see of it.

I've worked in a lot of large FS companies and there are some common occurances:
1) The Chairman, CEO etc does not read nor respond to most of the complaint addressed to them
2) There exists an "executive complaints team" that reports into the COOs office or equivalent that either directly deal with the complaints or case manage them. These are not "executives" however are both much more senior and more empowered than your front line complaints handlers
3) Each company is ultimately unique and to every rule there is an exception

With a previous client a statutory notice was sent out to certain customers "signed by" the COO (obv just a digital print not a wet signature). One customer wrote back to the COO pointing out he was not a statutory director of the company nor even an employee of the company and therefore the notice was invalid and should be reissued with a signature from a properly authorised person.

It could well be the attack on his personal authority but in that case the COO wanted to see the whole case and all communications in relation to it... I'm still not 100% clear how I got lumped with that one.

EarthBoy

colsten said:
Nonetheless, Executive action gets taken on complaints sent to a CEO.

As others have said, it varies from company to company, and there's no guarantee that complaints sent to a CEO will always result in an executive level reply, or action.    
Some years ago I worked for a major energy company in the bog standard correspondence department.  Any letters or complaints sent to the Chief Executive were just answered by us as normal, they certainly weren't sent on to his office.  We just used to start the replies with something like: "Thank you for your letter/complaint to (name of Chief Executive).  He has asked me to reply on his behalf".  Of course, this was a lie.  He hadn't asked us to reply at all, he'd never even seen the letter.

colsten

EarthBoy said:

colsten said:
Nonetheless, Executive action gets taken on complaints sent to a CEO.

As others have said, it varies from company to company, and there's no guarantee that complaints sent to a CEO will always result in an executive level reply, or action.    
Some years ago I worked for a major energy company in the bog standard correspondence department.  Any letters or complaints sent to the Chief Executive were just answered by us as normal, they certainly weren't sent on to his office.  We just used to start the replies with something like: "Thank you for your letter/complaint to (name of Chief Executive).  He has asked me to reply on his behalf".  Of course, this was a lie.  He hadn't asked us to reply at all, he'd never even seen the letter.

To the consumer, it doesn't make a difference in the end how their complaint gets resolved. I bet you if you had not responded timely and satisfactorily that in most cases there would have been a follow-up to the CEO, and perhaps also to the Press. Execs / their staff will also notice that something is not right with their complaints department if many complaints land in their in-tray. No company worth their salt will want the reputational damage from not resolving reasonable complaints within the shortest possible timescale.

RetSol

colsten said:

CEOs are unlikely to respond to most individual customer complaints. However, any complaint landing in their inbox will be passed to an executive complaints team who will be more empowered than the general complaints team. Personally, I would always escalate to a CEO's email before I go to the FOS, as this promises to resolve the matter in most cases much more quickly than going to the FOS. As an example, you don't have to wait for 8 weeks before escalating to the CEO. CEOs will also be keen to avoid referrals to the FOS. My - limited - experience with executive complaints has been nothing but positive.

That is also my experience. Depending on the nature of the complaint, be sure to make it clear that, if you are not satisfied with their response, you will contact the Press/broadcast media/Martin Lewis/R4 Moneybox/your MP/the PCA (as applicable).