Ever had an issue with a company where you just can’t reach a human being? You’re directed through endless email queues, tedious “tech support”–your issue is falling on deaf ears. Isn’t it incredibly frustrating? It’s enough to make you wonder if any human beings actually work at these companies!
Here’s how I not only found a top executive at a large company, but got an urgent issue with that company fixed in record time…
Recently, I found a bug in a popular piece of software: the Alexa toolbar for Firefox. Firefox notified me that a new version of the toolbar was out, and I clicked to install it without thinking much of it.
When I opened Firefox, I immediately noticed that links in Gmail and Facebook were displaying blank pages when clicked. I used the first rule of tech support to troubleshoot: Undo your last change. I disabled the Alexa toolbar and restarted the browser, and sure enough, the links were working again! Uh-oh. Big problem for Alexa.
I went to the Alexa site and clicked the “Help” link, which led me to their customer support forums. Another user had already reported the problem, so I added a “me too” response.
I gave Alexa a day to respond. The next day, they still hadn’t responded, and there was no indication that anyone from Alexa was even reading the forums. I decided to escalate.
Step 1: Find The Right Person
I perused Alexa’s management page, looking through all the names and trying to figure out who would be the best point of contact.
Tip: Don’t always shoot for the president. Sometimes, someone lower on the food chain (such as a middle manager) often will have more time to listen to voicemail and may even pick up his/her own phone!
I decided the most likely person in charge of the toolbar would be Steve Dawson, Alexa’s software engineering manager.
Step 2: Find The Company’s Phone Number
Phone numbers can be tricky. Alexa doesn’t publish theirs on their website. I decided first to try whois for their domain name. To use whois, I went to domaintools.com and typed in alexa.com. All companies are required to have phone numbers on their domain names, but some will be an invalid number.
I dialed the phone number and was excited to find I had reached Alexa’s headquarters. Lucky–Alexa had a real phone number on their listing!
Step 3: Dial by Name (or Ask for a Specific Person)
“Support” usually sends you to a low-level person who really doesn’t have any leverage in the company. If you really have an urgent issue, you need someone who can fix it right away. So, instead of waiting for a prompt like “support” or “sales”, I opted to dial by name. (If you get a receptionist, you can do the same thing by asking for that person, and then saying “An urgent issue regarding [your problem]” when you call.)
The phone rang a few times and I was directed to Mr. Dawson’s voicemail. I left a message clearly explaining the issue. And I did one important thing that made sure my message would get attention…
Step 4: State What You Want Them to Do
You need to not only be able to clearly state the issue, but also clearly state what needs to be done. Do you need them to call you back? What, exactly, can they do to resolve this issue for you?
In this case, I didn’t care whether anyone at Alexa personally followed up with me or not. I mentioned the forum where no one had replied, and asked him to have someone reply on that forum. I didn’t leave my phone number or request a followup. If this is a general complaint, you can ask them to issue a statement, post a blog, or email their customers once it has been fixed.
Step 5: Ask Your Contact to forward to the Appropriate Person
After I explained the issue, I said “If this isn’t your responsibility, can you please notify the person whose responsibility it is?” This ensured that I wouldn’t encounter a “That’s not my job…delete!” Hopefully, most executives wouldn’t do that anyway, but this safeguards against that.
Step 6: Follow Up (and my Success Story!)
The day after I called, I checked the forum. Sure enough, there was a post timestamped just a couple hours after I called! In it, an Alexa employee said they had rolled back the toolbar to the previous version and were working on a fix. He apologized for the inconvenience the issue had caused.
Now, there’s no way to know for sure my phone call was the catalyst. But there are facts supporting that. A day went by and there was no response in the forum. A few hours after my call, an Alexa employee responded and took action to resolve the issue. Either way, I will chalk that up as a victory!
In summary:
- Find the right person.
- Dial by name.
- Clearly state your issue and what action you need the person to take. Ask them to forward to the proper person if he/she is not the right person to resolve the issue.
- Follow up to ensure that the requested action has been taken.
Caveats
Finding the company’s real phone number can be tricky. For huge companies, Get Human offers phone numbers.
If you know the city and state where the company is located, or can find it on their website, using the yellow pages is also an option. YellowPages.com has most listings in the U.S. (They’re showing Alexa’s phone number correctly, too.)
This technique not only works, but it works well. Use it wisely, though: Don’t use this for sales calls. Use it when you have a real issue with a company and need serious help resolving it.
Have you used this technique (or a similar one) to reach an executive at a business? What other techniques have you used that are successful? Let me know in the comments!
Recommended Reading:
- How to Negotiate Your Phone and Cable Bill. Save thousands of dollars with one phone call. Read the comments–you will be amazed at how much other people have saved!
- How to Download Videos. We buy or download all this great video content, but then we don’t actually watch it. Does this happen to you, too? With this simple trick, I was able to fly through many hours of information products…
- How to Survey Your Customers for Free. Never pay for an online survey tool again! I show you how to survey an unlimited number of customers for free using a little-known Google product.
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20. May 2010 at 1:22 pm
Good stuff Erica! Thanks for walking through the process with us. We appreciate it!
20. May 2010 at 1:36 pm
Good tips and advice, as always Erica.
One more tip: If you know the name of the person and don’t have his mail address, using a known mail you can try to guess the one you’re looking for. For example, you look for John Doe (CEO of Corp corp) and you know the mail of Jane Doe: doe.jane@corp.com you can try doe.john@corp.com and may be lucky.
20. May 2010 at 3:09 pm
Awesome job, Erica. I am sure you were the catalyst for this matter.
I just found someone who was feeding my content (and quite a few other PF bloggers) onto their site (scrapers <–the name sounds like a Mad Max movie). But, I did track them down via domaintools.com and took care of the matter.
And I agree, a clearly stated message is key. BTW, great tip Samuel. I do that all the time to reach my children's teachers.
20. May 2010 at 3:55 pm
I did a stint cold-calling by phone for Trammel Crow’s Wyndham operation newly opened at I35 and 290 in Austin a while back. Ok a long while back but that’s irrelevant.
Turns out if you could actually get to an exec and lay out your pitch fast, they would either buy or not buy, nothing personal.
The problem was always getting through the battle ax secretaries. I think these guys knew (this was the ’80s after all) that they needed the protection! They could be sold easily!
Selling the secretary to let you through was always way more difficult.
I guess these days there aren’t secretaries.
Lesson: people are people, no matter where they are in the food chain.
20. May 2010 at 4:05 pm
Don’t you just hate that, this seems to be the norm these days. and if you get someone on the phone, they have to forward you to another department. then when all is said and done, problems solved, data recorded,feeling of accomplishment. Then not two days the problem arises again, back to square one, then they act as if the problem was never mentioned. then they act as if it was your problem. Shoot I always ask for their boss and if that don’t work I keep climbing the ladder. sooner or later you find that person you should have been talking to in the first place. Because aparently no one under them knows what they are doing and or just a run around in their favor.
Well anyway Erica, great post, keeping it real, thanks.
20. May 2010 at 6:28 pm
A way to make others care, that’s what you’ve done. I see from the other side of your writing, that what is in your mind becomes very easy to write. We often face the problem and possible solutions as well! Yeah right solution is needed and you have to do it all. OK! I’ll remember the tips that you provide, but the most I have prioritized the six steps that always inspires me to stay one step ahead.
Best regards,
20. May 2010 at 6:43 pm
One of the best resources in the world is the JJ Hill Business Library in St. Paul, Minnesota. If the company has any history whatsoever, public or private, the Hill Library will have information. Much is accessible online without a subscription. For a mere $60 per month you get everything they have. Librarians are available to help with searches as well.
However, it’s not the big companies you need to be careful with. It’s everyone else. the internet is covered with slippery people. Many of my vendors are not based in the United States. They are exempt from laws we follow. Before you make any purchase, know that you can contact someone later. If they aren’t transparent at the beginning, you’ll have nothing but trouble later.
Spending a little time up front will save you lots.
20. May 2010 at 8:44 pm
Hi Erica,
Your post is touching on a subject that is coming up a lot for people but remains largely undiscussed. So thank you for bringing it up.
Who hasn’t been frustrated with not being able to get in touch with the right person to address an issue?
Some companies are easy to reach but they are one in a million.
Otherwise it seems like they are hiding seemingly on purpose.
With all the technology one would think that people would be easy to reach. But it seems the technology is often used to screen everything and everybody out.
To find a company in yellow pages these days is a rarity, especially if the company operates mostly on the internet and worldwide.
I wish I could add a good way to solve this problem but aside from what you’ve outlined so nicely I have no other solutions.
Vance
20. May 2010 at 10:15 pm
Experienced the same issue the last couple of days. I would have never thought to call them though. I just assume they get flooded with the issue requests.
Good hacks on getting to a number and a person.
21. May 2010 at 4:54 am
A trick I used to get through to a major company was to use their size against them.
Using false names to protect the guilty Megacorp did something which left me needing resolution right now. Problem…their website listed no contact information. Solution…the “corp” part of their name.
Every public corporation is required by law to publish a Form 10K every year disclosing their operations. Additionally, that form is required by law to be made available to the public by the Securities and Exchange Commission; which they now do online.
So, a quick Google of “Berkshire Hathaway 10K” (NOT the company involved) returns this link in Google:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095012905002423/a06623e10vk.htm
And on the very first page is the all important Registrant’s telephone number, including area code, in this case (402) 346-1400.
Putting a dead-end phone-tag number on this form will get a company one thing and one thing only…an audit from the SEC. You are all but guaranteed to speak to a live human being if you call the Registrant’s number. I echo Erica’s caution…this isn’t a way around gatekeepers, so treat it with care. But it works.
21. May 2010 at 7:12 am
Hi John,
Wow, incredibly useful tip! I had no idea. Thanks for posting that…I love it when my readers know even more than I do!
-Erica
21. May 2010 at 7:23 am
I’ll add that mentioning to the person to whom you are speaking that you found this number on the 10K will get you escalated faster than any threat you can imagine. Corporate Survival Rule #1: Never play games with the financially savvy.
21. May 2010 at 5:57 am
Over at Consumerist they are constantly talking about EECBs (Executive Email Carpet Bombs) and the email addresses you can use. Basically, the idea is to exhaust all other forms of resolution (customer service, executive customer service, retentions, etc) and as a final resort, send a strongly worded email directly to the executives and hope one of them bites.
Here is a link to an EECB How To: http://consumerist.com/2007/05/how-to-launch-an-executive-email-carpet-bomb.html
You can search for a company’s name to find email addresses for most large companies.
21. May 2010 at 7:15 am
Thanks, everyone! These are great tips. (Feel free to keep posting your experiences.)
Something I didn’t mention in this post is that many companies (especially Web-based ones) have a Twitter account that is monitored by staff. I’ve also used this for effective problem resolution. You can always check @companyname on Twitter to see if that company has an account there. I used this for GoToWebinar when their phone support system hung up on me after placing me on hold for over 30 minutes. Their Twitter person was able to resolve my issue in mere minutes, and escalated the hangup issue to management.
-Erica
21. May 2010 at 7:22 am
From the other side of the desk, what we do ourselves within our organizations to ensure our customers get answers? The service becomes an advantage to keep and win new customers. It is an opportunity we must seize.
21. May 2010 at 1:01 pm
I found Twitter quite useful for that; a few months ago I had a problem porting my cellphone number, and mentioned it (@-ing the company Twitter account). Very quickly, I was DMed an apology and given enough credit to cover several months…
Come to think of it, I could have done with a technique like this a year or two ago, when Register.com decided it would be fun to change a friend’s MX records to point to 127.0.0.1 when they switched registrars. Thanks to long TLD delegation TTLs, that took a while to clear fully – meanwhile, an entry-level drone was assuring me that register.com has no control over the zone files published by ns[1-6].register.com.
23. May 2010 at 12:06 pm
Erica,
I just started reading your blog a few weeks ago, and as always I enjoy the content. I find that asking for a specific person and asking “with confidence” works very well. Also, asking for them by first name (after you find the person you are interested in speaking with). Good post, I look forward to reading your future ones.
10. June 2010 at 12:44 pm
This is good info. Its frustrating sometimes when you can not get a hold of a human. Its happening more and more unfortunately. I’m going to try some of these tips to try to track down a human at Disqus.