Once a friend of mine fell victim to a classic college student trap—she found one of her textbooks online in “very good” condition selling for only $10! So of course, she popped on that deal like her life depended on it—when was she going to find a textbook that cheap ever again? When it arrived, however, she was singing the sad, sad tune of a girl with buyer’s remorse. The book was in horrible condition! There was water damage, tons of distracting highlighting, a bent-up cover, pages falling out, a scotch-taped spine, and “haha!”s written in sharpie next to any reference toward sex. She was furious—although she should have been more wary about a book priced so low, the company that sent her the book had absolutely no right to make false claims about the book and dupe college students like herself. So she did what every girl should do when a company commits fraud—complain! She decided to send an email and asked for my help. Here are some tips on complaining to a company to actually get what you want.
DO check out a company before you buy anything from them. Companies that are well-known like Barnes and Noble or Zappos know how important it is to treat a customer right, and it could cost them money if someone has a bad experience. Smaller or lesser-known companies might require some research. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not an online site is for a small business that just isn’t one of the big boys or if it’s an ongoing scam just by looking at it, so you have to check it out. If you buy things from amazon or ebay, make sure to check out the seller’s rating. It could be the difference between getting what you ordered and getting a mess.
DON’T let them bully you into submission. Remember, you are the one who can tank their ratings and share your horror story online and with everyone you know. You have the upperhand.
DO find out where to send complaints. Depending on the company, if you don’t send your concerns to the right place, they could delete your email or dump it in the trash. Your best chance of getting heard is by making sure you talk to people who will listen. Usually this is whatever department deals with customer service, returns, or sales.
DON’T sound like a crazy person. I know it is easy to lose your temper when someone wrongs you, but spewing fire from your mouth isn’t going to make them want to help you. You will find that it is much easier to negotiate if you sound like you’re someone they can carry a coherent conversation with.
DO make your situation clear. I worked in a mailroom for a little while, and let me tell you, the people who wrote in about specific problems and their own situation got through a lot better than the other people who had vague requests. If you ordered something online, make sure to include your order number, the date of purchase, the date of arrival, and a clear description and perhaps photos of the damage.
DO tell them things that are relevant that might help you gain their support. If you have extenuating circumstances that made you more distressed than your garden variety “this is not what I ordered,” tell them about it. Let them know that this dress was for your sister’s quinceñera and now you don’t know if you can find another dress in time. Tell them if your parent recently died and now you have no way of continuing payment or if you can’t afford a replacement because you come from a single-parent home and also have to help support younger siblings. Many times, serious extenuating circumstances will make a company feel extra bad about what happened and they may give you a discount on your next purchase, as well as refunding your money.
DO make it clear what you want from them. Offering a possible solution will make it easy for customer service reps to put you in touch with people who can make the things you want happen. It’s important to remember, though, that you shouldn’t lock yourself into something. Companies really hate having complaints against them, because it takes away from their potential customers, so they try to take a bad situation, and instead of just trying to fix it, they try to make it awesome, so instead of just satisfied, you’re pumped about how well the company fixes their mistakes. My sister bought some limited edition shoe hooks for her sneakers that were supposed to be scratch-resistant, but they came with scratches. The company was so sorry that they sent her two new sets of shoe hooks because the limited editions had run out, along with a gift card for their site.
DON’T leave out a deadline for action. Always remember to write that you are willing to wait a week or a month, before you contact the next level up in the chain of command. This will ensure that they get back to you.
DO hold people accountable. If Rhonda at customer service promised to tell you whether or not she was able to find you an undamaged version of those shoes within a day and she didn’t, call again and make sure to bring her name up. They may be able to find Rhonda and ask her what’s going on, or they may decide that her actions were not okay and that they need to make sure that her future customers aren’t given guarantees she can’t keep. Ask for the name of the person you’re speaking with so that if they say they cancelled your subscription to Vogue and didn’t they know who’s responsible.
DO move up the chain if no one listens. Sometimes, you may decide that getting sent pink passion nail polish instead of the apricot breeze that you ordered isn’t the end of the world, but if you want something done and no one listens, talk to the person who has the power that the customer service rep didn’t.
DON’T forget that if they wronged you, they have an obligation to make it right. It’s good business. And sometimes, like in the case of my friend with the dilapidated textbook, it’s the law. Fraud is a criminal offense!
Part of being a woman in charge of her life is holding people accountable and going after what you want. Hopefully this has helped those of you who wanted to complain about bad service and just didn’t know how! If you need more help, here is a short list of links that can help you figure out how to complain.
http://www.howtocomplain.com/
http://www.bbbonline.org/consumer/complaint.asp
http://www.ehow.com/how_2159662_complain-effectively.html
http://money.msn.com/shopping-deals/how-to-complain-and-win-weston.aspx