How to complain and win

How to complain and win



Wrangling with customer service representatives is an art form, but you can
do it successfully with a little knowledge and a stubborn streak.


It’s time to get mad.

Almost every day, I get another e-mail or letter from someone who has
suffered some outrage at the hands of a company, usually one that purports
to care about customer service. But instead of being livid, most of these
folks are resigned to bad treatment and just want to know how to minimize
the damage.

Here’s an example. Willi Sommer is a Navy submariner stationed in Italy.
AT&T took a $425 payment Sommer made to his direct-bill calling card account
and applied it, in error, to his mother’s wireless account.

Any company can make a mistake, of course. What counts is how the company
fixes it.

AT&T fixed Sommer by turning his account over to a collections agency. This
is after Sommer sent the company copies of the cashed check and spent hours
on overseas phone calls with AT&T customer-service reps.

When AT&T finally realized its mistake, it gave Sommer a credit -- but only
for the amount of the payment that his mother hadn’t already “spent.”

You don’t have to take it anymore
I’d love to tell you AT&T’s version of these events. I tried for days to get
one of their public-relations people to speak to me about this. Instead, I
got transferred from one PR type to another, but nobody was willing to admit
that this problem fell within his or her purview.

Sommer had been dealing with this nonsense for six months. It’s no wonder he
became numb. All he was hoping for when he contacted me was suggestions for
fixing his credit report. He’d long since given up hope that AT&T would
actually give back the money it took or that it would apologize for treating
him so shabbily.

It’s time to fight back.

You really can win
I’m here to tell him, and you, that we just don’t have to take it anymore.
So what if customer service keeps getting worse -- you can complain
effectively, and get results. You just have to know how.

Know your rights. Sometimes companies get away with egregious behavior
simply because its victims don’t know the law. It’s illegal, for example,
for a company to knowingly report false credit information, or for
collection agencies to keep calling you after you’ve told them in writing to
stop. Knowing the law -- and letting the companies know you know -- is
sometimes effective in getting bad behavior to stop.

If your complaint involves a contract, warranty or guaranty, read all the
fine print that came with it. You don’t necessarily have to limit yourself
to the remedies prescribed in these documents, but you should at least know
what the company promised.

Know what you want. Be clear in your mind and in all your communications
with the company about what you want to happen. That way you won’t get
sidetracked.

After all, the customer-service rep’s job, typically, is not to make you
happy. It’s to get you off the phone.

If the rep suggests ways to fix your problem at all, it will usually be ways
that don’t cost her or the company much. When my new laptop’s hard drive
failed for the second time last month, Dell wanted to send me yet another
replacement part. But I knew from the start of my call that I wasn’t getting
off the phone until a replacement computer was on its way.

I’m assuming, by the way, that what you want is both reasonable and doable.
Your definition of those two terms may vary from the company’s, but you
can’t be ridiculous about it. The dry cleaner that ruined your jacket, for
example, should be expected to buy you a new one. You shouldn’t expect free
dry cleaning for life.

Be concise. Boil your story down to its essential elements; you might even
practice first with a friend before you pick up the phone. Nattering on
about irrelevant details will just make it easier for the rep to tune out or
miss the point. Besides, you’re going to have to repeat your story over and
over and over to get results. Might as well save yourself some time by
editing in advance.

Don’t be a jerk. My husband, the most effective complainer I know, puts it
this way: You don’t have to be nice, necessarily. You do have to be polite.

Hubby has used this not-nice-but-polite approach to get us a 50% discount on
a garage door that was incorrectly installed, a free upgrade on our Tivo
service (again, botched installation) and a number of other concessions from
companies that initially insisted there was no way to accommodate us.

He isn’t sweet, understanding or particularly patient when he deals with
people who resist giving him what he wants. But he is unfailingly civil.
Rude behavior just gives the rep an opportunity to hang up on you, or feel
justified in not helping you.

I’ve found being nice sometimes greases the wheels. Some reps are so used to
being berated by customers that they melt pretty quickly when dealing with
someone who’s pleasant. My favorite ploy is to chat them up, then ask them
how they would handle my problem if it were theirs, instead of mine. Many
times, they’ll respond to this treatment by connecting me with someone who
can actually solve my dilemma.

Know that the company’s problems are not your problems. Customer-service
reps love to tell you exactly why the company’s procedures don’t allow them
to do what you need them to do. Guess what: You don’t have to care. How the
company chooses to conduct its business is not your concern. What is your
concern is getting your problem fixed, however the company ultimately
decides to do it.

Carve out some time. I’m convinced some companies try to wear you out with
excessively long hold times. You can’t force them to pick up the phone, but
you can fight back by out-waiting them.

Get yourself a portable phone or, better yet, a portable with a headset.
That way you can do other things to keep your sanity while waiting for the
company to see reason.

It took me three hours on a Saturday morning to persuade Dell to see things
my way. I survived innumerable transfers, two disconnects and endless
stretches on hold largely because I wasn’t tethered to a desk the whole
time. Thanks to my portable head set, I was able to nurse and play with my
daughter, sort mail and even do a little light housekeeping while I talked
to Sandy, Matt, Phyllis, Jason, Raina and the rest of the Dell crew about
how they were going to get me a replacement computer.

Get names and call back numbers. Sometimes, you don’t have three hours in a
row to spend on the phone. Rather than start over from the beginning each
time you dial, make sure you know how to get back in touch with the people
who handled your last call. Having a name and number also comes in handy
when you get transferred into voice-mail hell or the phone simply goes dead
-- not that a customer-service rep would ever, ever deliberately hang up on
you.

Take notes. I don’t know why, but reps are inordinately impressed when you
can tell them exactly when you were told what by whom. These details can
also help when you’re enlisting others to come to your aid (see below).

When in doubt, get it in writing. Consumer advocates usually recommend
putting disputes in writing. The reality is that most problems get handled
over the phone, and you don’t necessarily have to conduct business by snail
mail.

If the issue involves a lot of money, taxes, legal issues or your credit
report, however, put everything in writing and send the letters certified
mail, return receipt requested. Keep a log of all your communications with
the company and copies of every relevant piece of paper.

Keep moving up the ladder. You probably know that if you can’t get what you
want from a phone rep, you should ask to speak to a supervisor. But the
folks with the real power may be several rungs up the ladder. If you strike
out, try the company’s marketing or public-relations division. A letter sent
to the company’s president or CEO can often break through a logjam like
nothing else.

If the company is violating the law, you may need to contact the appropriate
regulator. You’ll need to do some research to find the right office, and you
can’t necessarily count on results. The Federal Trade Commission, for
example, collects complaints about credit bureaus, but typically only acts
if it sees a pattern of problems emerging.

Desperate measures
If you’re having a problem with the government itself, the ultimate resource
may be your local, state or federal representative. Many lawmakers pride
themselves on taking care of their constituents on this grassroots level.

Then there’s always the option of alerting the media. (Caveat: Don’t alert
me -- I’ve got enough to do.) But if the company’s behavior has been
particularly terrible or you think you might be part of a trend, you can try
calling your local newspaper or television station to see if you can
interest them in your plight.

That’s the way one of my former colleagues at the Los Angeles Times
discovered that a local phone utility was charging many of its customers for
DSL service that didn’t work. The utility kept insisting that there was no
problem, or that customer complaints were “isolated incidents.” After the
reporter heard from a bunch of “isolated incidents” and wrote a front-page
story about them, the company was forced to stop billing people for
something they never got.

Finally, you can always hire a lawyer. It’s not the easiest or most
cost-effective way to get what you want, but sometimes it pays off.

Real-estate agent Judy Thomas tried for six years to get TransUnion to
remove another woman’s bad credit history from her credit report. Thomas
finally won a $5.3 million lawsuit against the credit bureau. The judge
later reduced the award to $1.3 million, but hey, Thomas made her point.