5 Steps to Effective Complaining...Make it Pay Off!

At my advanced age....cough, cough.....I would hardly consider myself a shrinking violet when it comes to speaking up about something.

True, when I was younger I may have let problems slide and not made an issue of something just for the sake of "not making waves".  It was easier to just let problems with products and companies go.
Who needs the hassle of having to write a letter to complain that a food product wasn't fresh or edible even or that some houseware  broke the first time you used it? 
It was easier to just move on and mentally make a note in the back of your brain not to EVER buy that item again or even to blacklist the entire company that provided you that defective product.

But, that was many years ago.....back before I racked up many many MANY incidents of products that didn't live up to what they were suppose to be and companies that didn't provide what was promised.
Eventually we all get to that point in life, when dealing with companies, where we become Howard Beale and get fed up with the status quo and just let them know how we feel about the situation....



(I love this movie!  Even back in the '70s it was so ahead of it's time...)

Ok, so yelling out your window won't get you much except a case of laryngitis when it comes to getting satisfaction from a company.

You need to practice a little thing called "Effective Complaining". 
 Here are the steps I use...

*Seek out a venue for communicating with the company.
Use the internet to find their website.  From there navigate the site for any contact links(email, telephone, mailing address, etc.)they provide to communicate with the company's representatives.

*Present your complaint.
Be factual.  Don't let your emotions run wild and just call them names and tell them they suck.....even if they DO suck and the little man in your head won't shut up saying that.  The person taking your complaint is not the one who has wronged you.  They are the one who may HELP you get satisfaction so be cordial or even nice to them.  I like to open with saying something positive about the company or product but that I am disappointed in some way.  Then lay out what is making you unhappy and why.  Give pertinent details.

*Suggest ways in which they can rectify the situation to your satisfaction.
 If you are unhappy with a company, they want you to make you happy.  Happy customers give them more money and dah!...businesses want your money.  Letting the company know what specific things will turn you from an unhappy consumer to a happy one makes their job easier and will help you ultimately find satisfaction quicker.  Do you want a refund, a replacement, an apology?  Be realistic about your expectations.  Asking a company for an all-expense-paid trip to Paris because their ballpoint pen leaked in your shirt pocket is a little over the top.

*Escalate if your needs are not met.
If your first contact about your complaint brings about no satisfaction, try again.  If you emailed, try a telephone call.  If you called first, try another telephone call, as  you will probably get a different customer service rep. who might be having a better day and is more willing to make you happy. If that rep. can't help you, go up the "calling food chain" and ask to speak to the supervisor or to their manager. Or try an email if you called first.  If neither an email or phone contact bring results, mail a letter.
If a mailed letter doesn't kick-start someone to respond, you can consider contacting outside sources to help you beat them into submission, er.....help you get some resolution.  There is the Better Business Bureau, among others, as well as your local newspaper or tv investigative reporter.  For serious issues, these outside sources can put pressure on a business on your behalf.  There is always the A-Team but calling them will only help you rescue a hostage or blow something up. 

*Follow-up goes a long way.
When your situation/complain is resolved let the company(customer service dept.)know that you are satisfied.  If you contacted via email or mailed letter, send a "thanks for resolving my issue" email.  Just a couple of sentences is enough.  If you go on & on, they may flag you as a nut job, and avoid future emails you may have to send them.  If your interaction is via telephone and they resolve your problem then and there, just thank the customer service rep on the other end for their help before you hang up.

Let me illustrate the process with a situation I had at Chez Sluggy.
See this bottle of juice?

I purchased it at KMart late last year during one of their Double Coupon Events, using a coupon.  It was on sale and with the coupon doubling, I paid maybe $.10 for it.
When I went into my stockpile to use it some months later, I found that this had happened.....

The glue holding the spout to the paperboard container had crapped out.  Yes, crapped out is my technical term, what of it?
My first thought was to find the receipt and return this bottle to the store for a refund or replacement.
Well, it was well past the 90 day KMart Return Policy period so that option was off the table.
Since I had only paid .10¢ for the juice, I considered just chucking the bottle in the garbage and moving on with my life.
But.....I couldn't do that. 
This "juice malfunction" ate at me.  Ok, so tell me I 'need a life'!
Knowing I was letting this company off the hook and NOT being satisfied as a consumer drove me to contact them and attempt to find relief from my sleepless nights.

My first plan on attack was to see if the company had a customer service email address.
The company website had a contact form so I filled it all in, including complete product information(size, type, UPC any other code I could find on the container,etc.), when and where the item was bought, and then I laid out the problem (container malfunction). I added what steps would satisfy me(a refund or replacement)and closed with the fact that my family has been a consumer of their products for many years without encountering any problems.

Had I received no response(after 1 week had passed), I would have tried a phone call, as the company supplied a customer service phone line on the website as well.  I prefer to go the email route first since I am not a big fan of the telephone.

The next step, if a phone call had not gotten me what I wanted, was to drag out the BIG GUNS and write an honest-to-goodness letter.
A letter takes a bit more effort than an email or phone call.  Popular wisdom is that companies believe that for every complaint letter they receive there are scads more unhappy customers out there that don't bother to write that letter.  Every letter represents many more disgruntled consumers, therefore companies seriously don't like to get complaint letters!  Because of this, I have found that writing the company a "I'm mad as hell & I'm not going to take it anymore!" letter will at least get you a response & an attempt to placate you, if no other form of contact does.

Luckily for me, the email did it's job, so I didn't have to escalate this and spend any more time to communicate my displeasure.
And fairly quickly, a response arrived in the mail....

A free replacement item coupon plus a $.75/1 Coupon good on my next purchase of this item, good until mid December.
So, a few more high value coupons would have been nice but for the amount of time I spent on my complaint, this was a decent outcome.

I did follow up by using the contact form on the company's website to let them know that my coupons had arrived and to thank them for taking care of my issue. 

I had asked them when I had contacted them initially if there was a known issue with the glue holding the spout onto the container.  They never did address that part of my inquiry so I have no clue whether this is an ongoing problem or just an isolated incident I experienced.  Because of their unwillingness to response to this issue, I will be avoiding these types of containers in the future, so they have lost me as a consumer of this particular product.

In closing, I'd give Nestle a B- for their customer service.
Good response and follow-through but they lost the A by avoiding my glue question.

Do you contact companies when their products don't live up to your expectations?
If not, why don't you pursue a resolution?
Do you have an interesting story about a product complaint issue?
Let us know!

Sluggy