A series of interviews by The Complaining Cow
In my series of interviews with people in the consumer world regarding their complaining habits, today is the turn of finance journalist Paul Lewis. Are your habits similar?
Paul Lewis’ complaining habits
1) Generally, do you complain to a company regarding a faulty item?
Yes if I think it will result in anything useful.
2) How much does the likely redress have to be before you will
complain and why?
It’s more a case of how cross I am about it and the chances of success.
3) How well do you know your legal rights (Consumer Rights Act, different sectors regulations etc.)
Fairly well
4) If you receive service over and above good do you give feedback?
How
Seldom
5) If you receive poor service how many people do you tell (include
your social media followers too!)
If it’s very bad I tweet about it so 113,000! Otherwise just family
6) If you receive good services how many people do you tell?
Family otherwise it looks like advertising!
7) If you don’t really complain or it has to be a significant amount
in question before you will, what stops you from complaining?
The bang has to be worth the buck..
8) What do you think of using social media to complain?
It is a good idea., it gets the complaint to a wide audience and may result in change.
9) Is customer service/being able to gain redress a factor when
deciding where to purchase an item
In the sense that I prefer to buy from UK or use a credit card, yes.
10) Do you ever contact a CEO of a company? If so at what point in the complaint process?
I never have but I recommend it as a technique if a complaint is being blocked.
11) If you have ever used an ADR scheme (ombudsman/mediation/arbitrator)
or gone to Small Claims Court tell us about it
No I haven’t.
About Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis has been a freelance financial journalist since 1986.
He has presented Money Box on Radio 4 since 2000 and appears on many radio and television programmes. He writes for Saga Magazine, Radio Times, Financial Times, and Money Marketing.
He has won many awards since 1986. Most recently he has won many awards. Headline Money Financial Broadcaster of the Year 2017 and voted Consumer Champion 2017 by the Chartered Insurance Institute. In 2018 he was the Kames Capital broadcast journalist of the year.
He has an honorary doctorate from University of Essex for his journalism over many years defending the interests of consumers.
He is an authority on the Victorian writer Wilkie Collins and edits his letters.
Online: www.paullewis.co.uk, blog www.paullewismoney.blogspot.com and has more than 113,000 Twitter followers @paullewismoney
Help with your complaints
If you need help with complaining effectively and making sure you are never fobbed off. GET THE BOOK! How To Complain: The ESSENTIAL Consumer Guide to Getting REFUNDS, Redress and RESULTS! See Paul Lewis’ review of the book too!
Want to get better at complaining? See 101 Habits of an Effective Complainer See Paul Lewis’ review and foreword.
Save yourself time and effort finding the laws and wording a letter of complaint and download a template, fill in your details and get that redress
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