In an earlier post, I talked about some serious PdM issues surrounding trouble in replacing HP printers with other HP printers. When I wanted to make sure the PdMgr understood these issues from my seasoned perspective, I respectfully asked the escalation case manager to either put me in touch with the specific product manager or promise that my write-up of the situation would get relayed to him.
Amazingly, she told me she could not do that. I said I could understand the potential for being snowed under by both complaints and compliments from every single customer, but suggested there was useful information here, from an experienced PdMgr. I asked if she could perhaps convey to him that I had some constructive input- of the kind that my clients have paid me to provide – that I would give him for free (and for the benefit of my printing expereince). She then told me that “HP product Managers are prohibited from communicating directly with customers though either inbound or outbound contacts”.
I hope this was simply a misunderstanding in policy as it was communicated to the case manager, or that there was some criteria – like being from a $20 M customer account – that I lacked and that she was too nice to express. But she made it sound pretty clear and pretty absolute.
At the risk of stating the painfully obvious Take-Away:
- Set-up a protocol so that the gatekeepers can still figure out which input the PdMgr needs to receive, or needs to know about to go get, and
- Make that protocol honest enough and transparent enough to convey it to customers so they can tell if they don’t qualify, as opposed to concluding that the company has become totally non-interested with its customers
