No matter who you are, sooner or later you’re going to have a bad experience as a customer. Perhaps your restaurant meal was cooked insufficiently to the point where you have to return the dish and ask for a new one. Maybe you were promised discounts on a flight thanks to your package deal, but the referral never registered and now you have to pay full price, catch the flight, and deal with it on your vacation. We’d rather not raise any blood pressure or raise any bad memories, so we’ll stop there.
Either way, making a complaint in these circumstances is not only a good idea, it’s your main right. Ultimately, you’re helping these companies by demanding fair treatment, highlighting issues, and having them restore the issue. You’re also helping yourself, either by finding a solution to the issue or at least knowing where to never pay for your goods again.
With the advice below, we’ll lay out a few steps to give your business complaint a little more bite:
Treat Customer Service Agents With Respect
While it goes against our frustrations and our need to demand a solution now, it’s important to remember that unless you’re speaking with the direct business owner, you’re likely speaking to an employee and customer service agent. As such, being friendly, open, respectful, polite can get you a result so much more quickly than you would otherwise. You can of course voice your frustrations, but it’s important to do so with tact. You would be surprised how motivated an agent can be if treated like a person with actual feelings in their role, something that, unfortunately, doesn’t always happen.
Be Clear About Your Problem & Know Your Rights
Of course, laying out the issue is essential. Make sure you delineate what you were promised, how the deliverables failed, what experience this gave you, what inconvenience you suffered, and what your rights are. Be clear about this, and don’t be afraid to highlight the challenge. This way, you may not only gain a refund, but compensation of some kind, be that free tickets or a quicker resolution. If you have to threaten to take the issue further, know your basic consumer rights and where to head depending on the business you worked with. Sometimes, this can motivate an uncooperative firm. You might even make suggestions, such as recommending they use a better point of sale system so they can take your order more capably next time.
Be Vocal About The Issue If Insufficently Met, Or If Resolved Well
If the issue isn’t dealt with accordingly, using the power of appropriate social proof can be helpful. A poor review on a product or business page online, detailing your experiences clearly as part of your customer feedback, and even producing content about your experience can be ideal. Sometimes, this can shake the cobwebs from a dismissive manager and also ward their future business away. They might be happy to work a little harder despite that challenge. In addition, if they commit to a good job, well, you can always praise them through these platforms too.
With this advice, you’ll be certain to make that efficient business complaint.