Matt Windle promoted, says he wants to build more cars at Hethel

Hot off the presses!

Lotus has a new European boss – and he wants to build more cars at the firm's Norfolk factory | Autocar

Production at the brand's UK base could be broadened, says Matt Windle, potentially to include the Polestar 6

www.autocar.co.uk

 

[DerTheDer]

Yeah most CEO's and people up in the chain have staff read their email and prioritize them by importance, which means about 95% aren't even seen by the principle.

 

[Orchardbike]

Someone should have responded. As I mentioned, the MD/CEO sets the culture. If people think they can ignore customer letters, then that’s a company issue that will eventually infect the business. Exactly what we see at Lotus. ,

 

[cwfg]

You're assuming he actually got them. My experience writing to people at his level, and even our political representatives here in the U.S., is that their staffers intercept all incoming correspondence and decide which ones they're going to pass through to the person you wrote to... or not.

The only time (with companies) I've ever gotten any actual results back from the people I was writing to, was when I sent the letters to all the members of the Board of Directors and/or investor group.

Exactly this. I used to work with a CEO/Founder who later in the game would just pass all customer emails he received on to me (as head of product) to deal with. The trouble was, I was usually swamped and getting back to all of them was near impossible and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t ignore/drop a fair few. Having said that, we had a rockstar customer service team who were expected to pick up every single incoming CS request and reply within 4 hours and I also took note of everything that was written, even if I didn’t reply directly. It got fed back into the product somehow no matter what

 

[Nick in Sydney]

Yeah most CEO's and people up in the chain have staff read their email and prioritize them by importance, which means about 95% aren't even seen by the principle.

Of course, but any decent company has a system that makes sure a letter to the CEO isn't just ignored. Normally there is an assistant who reads the letters, channels them to the appropriate person for response/follow-up and then makes sure a reply has been sent. Good CEOs also personally review a selection of customer letters each month to "stay in the flow".

 

[DerTheDer]

Of course, but any decent company has a system that makes sure a letter to the CEO isn't just ignored. Normally there is an assistant who reads the letters, channels them to the appropriate person for response/follow-up and then makes sure a reply has been sent. Good CEOs also personally review a selection of customer letters each month to "stay in the flow".

100% agree

 

[VL3X]

Yeah most CEO's and people up in the chain have staff read their email and prioritize them by importance, which means about 95% aren't even seen by the principle.

Exactly. I can only imagine how many angry letters they received during the long and painful Emira rollout. Most companies now just have a social media marketing team manage customer communications.

 

[frazzer]

My experience is that Matt Windle isn’t “a nice guy”. I’ve sent him a number of letters, due to the catalogue of issues with my car and the absolutely abysmal service from lotus customer ‘care’. He’s ignored them all. My email address was on the letters. I’m not saying he should have personally replied, but he should have got someone to contact me and reference the letter(s). A companies culture comes from the top down, not bottom up. If a company couldn’t care less about their customers, then that’s the MD’s fault, so the buck stops with Matt Windle.

I've met him, spent a few hours with him and seen how he interacts with his staff. He is a nice guy, but that doesn't make him a good CEO

 

[Porter]

I've met him, spent a few hours with him and seen how he interacts with his staff. He is a nice guy, but that doesn't make him a good CEO

Well, something is making them continue to promote him. He also seems to have the respect of his colleagues despite his elevation to a difficult leadership role, one where he has to make some hard decisions. That says a lot about him and about the team they've built together.