Shocked, Appalled, and Dismayed

Those of you that know me know that I'm not afraid to voice my concerns if & when a customer service problem arises. Some have accused me of voicing my complaints too frequently or too loudly or for reasons that did not warrant a complaint. To those that have accused me of this, all I can say is that you, too, can expect a letter of complaint from me regarding your accusations.

In all seriousness, I have honed my skills in this area over the years and am proud to say that I've gotten pretty good results when it comes to customer service problems. Britney & I have enjoyed four free nights at the Four Seasons in Whistler, BC and in Las Vegas, a free night at a Marriott, a free night at a Hilton, free Baby Einstein DVDs...the list is long. The key to getting the results you want when you voice a legitimate complaint is getting the complaint to the correct person. Here are some tips to help you do just that:

Talk to a person - Sometimes all you want is to talk to a person rather than leaving some comment on a voicemail box or getting stuck in phone menu hell. This site lists the correct ways to navigate the phone menu at a ton of companies so that you can get a live person and not have to listen to forty phone menu options:





Write a good letter - I cannot claim that I perfected my complaint letter writing skills without any instruction. I bought a book on how to write effective complaint letters and it has served me well. It really is a good resource to have because - trust me - you'll continue to have customer service problems as the years go by. The author, Ellen Phillips, points out some key things to include in your complaints - like what you want the resolution to be and who needs to be CC'd on the complaint. It's amazing how much more effective a CC to the US Hotel Commission is than a CC to the Better Business Bureau. That kind of good information is in this book:



Take it to the top - If you've written a good letter, talked to a human being, had someone out to your house three times to fix something and it still is broken, etc. - it's time to stop the child's play and head straight to the top. A voice mail left with the CEO's Executive Assistant or an email sent directly to the CEO him/herself is going to get some response. Usually they forward your email/voicemail to one of their underlings with some kind of "Bob - resolve this ASAP" type of message and, next thing you know, you're the recipient of a courteous phone call from someone at headquarters that wants to hear all about the situation (for fear of another email or call going back to CEO telling him that Bob, too, needs a lesson in customer service). How, you ask, do you find that contact information? It takes a little Googling, but it can be done. Start here:

Executive Customer Service for 36 Companies

If you strike out there, head over to Yahoo Finance. Type in the name of the company you're interested in and go to the 'Profile' page (it's under 'Company' in the left hand navigation bar). On the profile page, you'll find two key pieces of information - the phone number of the company's headquarters and the name of the top executives at the company. Call the phone number, ask for Joe CEO's extension, and you're likely in business.

If all of this fails, it's time for some reverse engineering. Head back over to Yahoo Finance and get the names of the top executives of the company. Then, head to Google and do the following:



In the Google search bar, type "@company.com" (replace company with your target organization). In this example, you can see that I've typed "@cvs.com". The 2nd result here is what I'm looking for! It shows me the format of email addresses used at CVS.com. So - using the list of executives I got at Yahoo Finance and the email format that I've found here, I now know with some certainty what the email address of the CEO is. Write a well worded nastygram and send away!

Final thought - don't abuse the complaint letter. They typically follow the law of diminishing returns where each subsequent letter is less effective than the one before. Complain only if you have a legitimate complaint, be courteous but firm, ask for fair compensation, and you too can get results!