BUX Podcast 92: What's the Deal with Bad CEOs?

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What’s the deal with all the lousy CEOs these days? The level of entitlement is too damn high!

Ron Johnson Craters JC Penney

Sure, CEOs have always been pretty comfortable with a certain level of arrogance, but only Ron Johnson, formerly of Target and the force behind the Apple stores, could lead JC Penney to what Business Insider calls “the worst quarter in the history of retail“.

Mike Jeffries Channels Hatred of the Entire Internet, Sales Down Double-Digits

Then there’s Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch and apparent burn victim. The Internet hates that guy because he said unpopular fatties couldn’t shop there. The stock is down double-digits too. That’s so ugly, it’s own stock price can’t shop at its stores. Ouch.

Scott Jordon from Scottevest Loves Pockets, Hates Customers

In a story that I just find depressing, beloved online clothier Scottevest made waves on social media this week for their extremely boneheaded way they dealt with a customer looking for a return. To make things worse, the person looking to have his jacket fixed – Ian Fenn – is a UX dork from the way back (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).

So it’s not like a raving lunatic is asking for something unreasonable. But his eye for customer-oriented detail has certainly lead him to have a kind of doggedness to him when he’s looking for the companies he loves to stand behind their products. Ian has written an extensive account of his interaction with Scottevest here. Providing all of the tweets and emails he’s exchanged with the company, and for Scottevest, it’s not a good look.

What this story is about is social media and customer service gone wrong. You know things are going sideways when you say something like…

@buxofficial We listen to our users and do so very well but we do not allow cower to demands and we are not intimidated by social media

— SCOTTEVEST, Inc (@scottevest) May 23, 2013

To be clear, the “demands” that were being made were to fix a damaged jacket.

Scott Jordan, CEO, in an email accused Ian of intentionally damaging the jacket, and chose to see him as somebody trying to get over on Scottevest, rather than a guy just trying to get his jacket fixed.

As you can clearly see from the ones we sent to you, they have extra plastic. There is no way it could have remained attached for a day without it, much less 6 months as you claim. It is illogical. They are sewn in. We have learned a bit about you and elect not to do business with you further. We are done.

Your emails have been blocked from our server.

Scottevest never missed an opportunity to badmouth Ian on Twitter, and clearly has contempt for him at the corporate level.

And all this to save shipping out one jacket from somebody who has previously spent over $1,000 with the company.

It’s insanity! And we get into it all, this week on BUX 92!