𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴 𝗧𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗠𝗲 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲

Mike Bloomberg suddenly appeared at my desk one morning, handed me a piece of paper, and said only this:

“Don’t muck it up.” (Or words to that effect.)

As Mike walked the 20 steps back to his desk, I hesitated to steal a glance at the document. It wasn’t every day that the guy whose name was on the door bothered with the likes of me. I was 28 years old and about a year into my time as Bloomberg’s first credit markets reporter. The document must have been important, and it was – a letter from a customer unhappy with a story I had written.

The customer demanded a reply and helpfully included his phone number. Since I wrote the story, Mike decided that I should call him. He could have given the assignment to my boss, New York bureau chief Jim Murphy (may he rest in peace), or the editor in chief, Matt Winkler. Instead, he trusted me to clean up the situation.

I made the call and the customer made his displeasure abundantly evident, but not before expressing his appreciation that Mike had actually read his letter and had me call. While we respectfully disagreed on the story, the customer had his chance to vent, which took the heat out of the moment. He hung up calmer than he was when he wrote the letter, and that was the real purpose of the call.

Mike understood that customers absolutely need to be heard. The magic of Bloomberg’s success is that the organization listens deeply to its customers and then acts fast.

Some time later, I had dinner with a customer who traded bonds known as “agencies” – primarily the bonds of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other U.S. government-sponsored enterprises. Bloomberg pioneered the delivery of real-time pricing of bonds and, critically, the sophisticated analytical tools that allowed traders and investors to gauge the relative value of fixed-income securities.

Before I had a chance to ask, the trader blurted out:

“This is why I love Bloomberg.”

Just one day prior, he sent a request through Bloomberg’s internal messaging system for a new analytical tool. The request went to a general mailbox, not to any one particular programmer. When the trader logged into his Bloomberg terminal on the day we met, he discovered that the tool had been created overnight. He was astonished. 

“It wasn’t perfect,” he said, “but it was 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. And I can work with that. I can now send additional feedback to the programmers. I get to help create the tool, and that’s hugely valuable to me.”

Decades later, I’m pleased to say that I didn’t muck up the call with the customer, and that I had the great privilege of learning about the essence of customer experience from the guy who used to steal french fries off my plate at lunch time.