To elaborate on why I declined:

The District Manager left a voicemail for me asking when he could schedule a tour with me. He was 100% polite, but it sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I interpreted it as, "My boss's boss is forcing me to give an idiot like you, someone probably with no experience in retail economics, a tour while I patiently pretend to listen to how you tell me to do my job better than me, a person with decades of experience in selling video games."

If the situation were reversed I wouldn't want some rando customer coming into my job and telling me everything he thinks I'm doing wrong.

Plus, I got the feeling (again, just my perception) that it would just be "here's what's wrong with this store" instead of "here's what's wrong with all of your stores."

Maybe it was all in my head and they would have taken me seriously, I don't know. But that was the impression I got.

And I was legitimately busy. Writing a letter takes 10 minutes, a tour and presentation of my ideas would obviously take a lot longer.

I suspect this is exactly why the CEO reached out to you in the first place--because they know how hard it is to get open and honest feedback from the store and retail managers.

Whether the district manager liked it or not, they absolutely would have had to report the results of your visit back to the CEO. And they would have had to be honest about it, since they knew the CEO could just call you back to check the accuracy.

I don't blame you for not wanting to get in the middle of that, but I bet the CEO felt like it was a missed opportunity.

You're probably not wrong. The internet's go-to description for CEOs and other executives is sociopath but I've found most leaders at the top to be humble and accommodating. If anyone fits "sociopath" it's more likely to be a middle manager, I find.

> I've found most leaders at the top to be humble and accommodating.

They are just incredibly effective sociopaths.

I'm not even sure if I'm joking.

It's one thing to complain about poor service, it's an other to brainstorm with district manager to improve the location. It's hard to know exactly what was being proposed without more details but the way it's described by the parent I think I would've refused as well unless I had a genuine curiosity to visit a videogame store with a backstage pass.

I mean it's a bit as if you complained in a restaurant that the food was bad and they proposed that you visited the kitchen and told them what you'd do differently. I don't want to do that, actually I'm probably not even qualified to do that and if I was I probably wouldn't do it for free.

It's very kind and considerate for the CEO to take time to schedule something like that but I don't find it weird at all that he declined the offer.

Yes. This, exactly.

"hey! Long time no see. We should meet up!"

"Definitely! How's the day after tomorrow sound?"

seen: 4 days ago

To be fair, I don't think the district manager would likely have been totally engaged in what he'd view as babysitting an irate customer. Now if Paul had also offered to accompany the tour, there you're getting meaningful engagement.

I don't know about that. If it was just to 'babysit an irate customer' that would be one thing, but there is a fair chance that the CEO would have required a debrief after the tour to get a handle on whether the letter writer had a point. A district manager's time isn't free and you don't throw away resources like that as if they are customer support.

Also: Paul may simply not have been the right person to be there because he's too far removed from the floor to make a meaningful contribution. Delegation to the right person in the org is the hallmark of a good manager.

An "irate customers" time isn't free either. Plenty of reasons why one might take the time to write a complaint but decline the opportunity to provide free consultation in person.

The company should be grateful for whatever "help" (or pointers to improvement) they can get - even if it's just a letter - way more preferable than a rant on the phone or slating on social media.

Agreed. That was my perception of the offer.

> "the compound annual return of the respondent group is 8.97% greater than the non-respondent companies."

That's a promising punch line.