Complaining to Get Results

According to the Consumer Reports, about 96 percent of customers who acknowledge being unhappy with an experience never bother to complain. Why? Call it apathy or fear, some just accept poor customer service, and complain to family members or friends, but never to the organizations. As life continues to demand more and more of our time, some simply feel their feedback would fail to be taken seriously or nothing will ever come of it.  For others who take the time to share their experience, the goal should always be complaining to get results.

Think about your last trip to the mall. As you cruised through a few stores, eventually you stopped at a register and made a purchase right? Better yet, your last online exchange. How did it go? Were you completely satisfied? If not, did you bother to complain and if so, what were the results?

How important is customer service? Moreover, if you receive subpar treatment, what should be done about it? Let us address the former question with some insight from the White House office Of Consumer Affairs; in commerce, the customer experience or (CX) is the product of an interaction between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship. This exchange includes a customer’s attraction, awareness, discovery, cultivation, advocacy and purchase and use of a service. As important as this exchange is, there are still millions of companies, which refuse to hold their staff accountable or invest in training and better hiring practices.

Here are some simple things to do whenever you are ready to lodge a formal complaint about customer service:

• Learn to streamline the narrative: Perhaps, you remember the old show “Dragnet” with Detective Joe Friday. His famous response when questioning a suspect was, “Just the facts ma’am.” In other words, cut to the chase of what is really going on. Often in our rants, we factor in our emotions, which can be taken out of context. When you are complaining, remove the fire and brimstone riot act and get down to the who, what, when and where. The manager does not need to know how bad your morning was before or after you received the wrong coffee order. Calmly state what happened and what you feel is the fair resolution.

• Type like Twitter, not like a college thesis: If it comes down to sending an email or written correspondence, note that less is more! This again goes to emotions. Get rid of all the distracting language and rhetoric so whoever is reading your complaint can understand what happened. Quite often, we talk ourselves out of a good complaint by adding too many words. As on Twitter, the objective is to get to the meat of the matter with as little fluff as possible. Outside of a standard salutation, your complaint letter should be very direct, just as if you were standing there reading it aloud. If it is not, scrap it and start again.

• Never, ever make threats: Here is where it gets tricky. Keep in mind as you are making the complaint, you are trying to get something resolved. Therefore, when your hand is in the lion’s mouth, it is stupid to yell and smack him. You coast it out gently. Just like any other relationship, the customer/client relationship is about compromise. The last thing you want to do is offend the very person who possesses the power to assist you. I am not saying add in useless flattery, however, by all means, be cordial. If you have already decided to cancel your services or never to shop there again, do that. You do not need to make idle threats of blasting them on social media or telling all your friends not to do business with them.

• Let someone read it before you hit send: This goes for emails and phone calls alike. Speak with a levelheaded friend you trust to measure your response. Being open to critique can save you tons on embarrassment later. If it is a phone call you have to make, ask them to sit in to help you stay calm and on the topic. This will do wonders to massage the conflict towards resolution. Remember, most issues comes down to two categories; store policy or inept staff. Either way, you are now speaking with someone who can remedy your bad experience. So there’s no need to blast their head off.

Years ago, while managing a retail clothing chain store, my predecessor taught me the theory “the customer is always right.” Of course, I soon realized that is just not true. Often the customer’s oversight creates the problem. However, no matter what the deal, I found more progress was made when dealing with a customer who could separate their anger from the situation and express to me what they wanted to be done. The others we usually pacified until they finally left the premises. Many of the customers with whom I spoke continued to visit because they could see my sincerity. Nevertheless, there were others, who no matter what could not be satisfied. Let us hope you who are reading this are like the first.

Always remember, regardless of the size of the problem, there is a right way and a wrong way to complain. The main objective in lodging a complaint is to get the quickest resolution possible. This will likely not occur by complaining so generically that nothing is ever done or resolved. Chances are you will have some things spring up along your journey that will require you to address them. I hope that you can glean something from the aforementioned points to assist you along the way.

Opinion by Early Jackson
(Edited by Cherese Jackson)

Source:

Beyond Philosophy: The Value of Complaints

Photo Credits:

Top Image Courtesy of New Direction Coaching Associates
Inline Image Courtesy of WSDOT – Flickr CC License
Featured Image Courtesy of CREATISTA – Shutterstock CC License