vitamin c. How to complain in a way that will be heard

It’s been two weeks since you complained about your washing machine going kaput but no one from customer service has visited to inspect or follow up. The clothes are piling up and you’re foaming at the mouth and your words don’t come out right. Your complaint is not specific. Sometimes, it turns into abuse. Unfortunately, that only worsens your cause. How can you complain right so that you are heard and the customer service department is moved to action?

Even angry complaints contain great insights for the company and can be quite fruitful if salvaged at the right time, says Marzin Shroff, CEO - Direct Sales and Senior VP, Marketing, Eureka Forbes.

Says Aniruddh Dhoot, Director, Videocon, “Sometimes the complainant does not mention their contact details or previous request number, which makes it difficult for us to track those consumers. Many times customers just leave a generic message saying, “The service is bad, don't buy”, which not only restricts us from helping the customer but also discourages others.” He says the company requests details when anonymous messages are left, and discards them when there's no reply beyond a certain time.

It’s always better to talk about the experience, is the advice of Harneet Singh Rajpal, VP – Marketing, Domino’s Pizza India. “It helps us arrive at the right action plan rather than spend time investigating.”

Dhoot says customers should be honest in terms of what led to the problems or when they started experiencing them. This helps the brand to understand the gravity of the situation. They should support the complaint with all contact details, bill number or any request numbers. “Also one must use a channel that is in regular use so that the brand and the customer can together resolve the problem without any delays in the process,” he adds. He explains that if someone not used to say, Twitter, complains there, they should remember to check for a response. It is also known that some companies offer various mediums of redress, including e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, but actively monitor only some of them.

Eureka Forbes’ Shroff says that in the most complicated cases, if customers are ignored on customer service channels, the best way to get the firm to act is to escalate matters to senior executives. He explains that any customer complaint pending beyond the committed dates of servicing is bumped up. Second, if the customer has utilised all channels to log their complaints, this again is captured by the executives and is attended to on an immediate basis, he claims.

In the experience of many customers, though, many complaints reach what seems like a dead end, unless one uses personal connections or other means to get things moving.

Shroff observes that complaints lose direction often in cases when too many complaints are grouped into one. To make your complaint count, filter out the most important of them all. A summarised letter or e-mail can be more helpful and credible than a phone call. It is important to keep the content short, crisp and focused. Be direct, yet cordial, he advises. It is best to focus on the conversation on resolving the problem.

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