Techniques to improve your complaining skills!
If you are not used to complaining, don’t like complaining, get fobbed off easily, but don’t like being out of pocket there are things you can do to help you improve your technique.
See 101 Habits of an Effective Complainer and for detailed help of laws, template letters information and advice get How To Complain: The ESSENTIAL Consumer Guide to Getting REFUNDS, Redress and RESULTS!
But in the meantime here are three more tips:
1) Believe complaining effectively is not negative
Many people will say that complaining is negative, brings down your mood etc. This can be the case, when you are not effective. Do something about the complaint. That is being positive, moaning can be damaging and bring you and others down. Saying “I complained and I got my refund/repair/redress…” etc. is a very positive statement which can encourage others to complain effectively and get results.
Complaining is good for your health! When I wrote an article about this on LinkedIn years ago there wasn’t anyone who disagreed! Peter, who provides leadership coaching and mentoring, said “Complaining is NOT negative – if that’s not a double negative !! 🙂 but some people exploit that perception in order to make you feel bad about raising concerns etc. Great businesses see complaints as a way of raising their game. Bad ones shoot the messengers, in general.”
2) Point out helpful feedback
If appropriate to the situation, point out to the company to which you are complaining that you hope that your feedback has been useful to them in developing their customer service. This demonstrates that you are looking to continue shopping with them if they handle the matter well.
Gavin Patterson was CEO of the BT Group from September 2013 until February 2019. He spent an hour each day responding personally to customer emails. See Calling all CEOs: please read emails from your customers and learn about your own business.
He believes that customer feedback is the single most important category of information coming into the business.
3) Don’t be opportunistic
Effective complainers are not about seeing a complaint every time they go into a shop or receive a service. It is simply about complaining when things genuinely go wrong.
Remember The Complainers documentary on Channel 4 in 2014? The Complainers Giving Complainers a Bad Name?
There were examples of people who complained just for the sake of it who went on and on and on at the same people for trivial things and they made themselves look very silly! As The Daily Telegraph put it “the difference between a valid complaint and a cathartic lashing-out was one of several distinctions largely ignored by The Complainers.”
For lots of help, consumer laws, advice and templates GET THE BOOK! How To Complain: The ESSENTIAL Consumer Guide to Getting REFUNDS, Redress and RESULTS!