| The paper letter would be one such side channel. jeff@amazon.con would be an even better such example. You will get a response from a "Executive Customer Relations" team, which is likely still a tiered tech support team, but the lowest tier is already capable of actually solving most problems that would get completely stuck in the regular support queue. It doesn't get much more intentionally designed than that. For banks and other regulated industries, if something is a sufficient clusterfuck of incompetence and getting-the-runaround, filing a complaint at some supervisory authority also works. That generally gets the attention of the "troubleshooting" team mentioned, which is usually all it takes. The supervisory authorities know this, and most complaints likely get resolved this way (getting it in front of someone with some level of competence and authority). I think the tiering structure is reasonable (some of my requests simply need a Tier 1 person to press a button that they have and I don't), and I've seen cases get escalated appropriately, but when the escalation fails/doesn't happen quickly it's incredibly infuriating. Other side channels can be (real examples): - legal department (note: this can be a one-way street and can make the company only talk to you through a lawyer, but if e.g. you have a complaint with a company that would result in a small claims court judge shake their head over the company's behavior, and are willing to take it to small claims court, this can be really effective). To reach them and get their attention, filing a small claims court case can be effective! - Really bad feedback (0/10 on every category, including the "are you satisfied with the person on the other end", not just the company) on a customer satisfaction survey - Social media (the common way to escalate "beyond the abilities of normal support channels" issues with tech companies). There are teams specifically for tracking and escalating social media feedback, but that's again a tiered system. Bigger shitstorm = higher tier. |