THE
CUSTOMER IS BOSS
How to Get What You Want
By John Tschohl
Your
new DVD player isn’t working properly. You packed it up
and took it back to the store, where a surly young clerk
told you there was nothing he could do other than charge
you to have it repaired.
“But it’s not my fault
it isn’t working,” you told him. “I shouldn’t have to pay
to have it fixed. I’ve had it for only three months.” The
clerk said it wasn’t his fault either and you could either
pay to have it repaired or purchase a new DVD player.
What do you do when faced with a situation like this?
How do you get satisfaction when something you purchase
doesn’t live up to expectations—or barely lives at all?
Like anything else in life, handling this situation
requires some planning and organization.
Complaining until you get the service you deserve can
be an art. You can challenge bad service in a calm,
reasoned, effective manner and rid yourself of that
helpless feeling. Registering a complaint can be an
honorable endeavor if you do it constructively and for
legitimate reasons.
My first suggestion is this: Don’t ever feel guilty
about complaining. You deserve good service—and you pay
for good service. Look at it this way, every time you
let bad service go by without objecting, you encourage bad
service. Too many of us accept bad service as the norm
rather than doing something to correct the problem.
In a nutshell, good service is as much the
responsibility of the consumer as it is of the business.
Looked at altruistically, you’ll be doing corporate
America a great service by complaining until they deliver
the service consumers deserve.
How do you do that? Follow these nine steps:
1. Be prepared. Keep all
your sales slips, cancelled checks, product tags, labels
or warranties, care information sheets, repair orders,
copies of letters you send to the company—and even company
advertising. Those materials will serve as the foundation
of your complaint.
2. Communicate only with people who can help you. Never
talk or write to anyone who doesn’t have the authority to
give you what you want. Also, don’t deal with anyone who
won’t give you his or her name and title.
3. Stay calm. Angry tirades will not get you what you
want; it will only escalate the situation and put the
person you are talking to on the defensive.
4. Maintain a working document. As you contact a
company’s representatives—in person, by phone, by mail, or
by e-mail—keep a log of the time, date, and discussions,
as well as the names of the people with whom you
communicate. A working document is a statement of all the
facts, names, and arguments that pertain to your
situation. It also
should contain a careful description of the circumstances
surrounding the situation that caused your complaint.
5. Be clear about what you want. Demand a specific
remedy. That might be replacement of a defective product,
a credit on your bill, or an apology from the offending
employee.
6. Set a reasonable time limit for action. Ten working
days is good rule of thumb.
7. Escalate your complaint. If repeated phone calls to
a supervisor or to the customer service department fail,
write to the president of the company. Normally the
president will relay your complaint to the appropriate
person—and you can bet that when that person gets your
letter, forwarded by the president, he or she will act on
your
complaint—and act quickly.
8. Keep copies of every letter you send. Those letters
should clearly state the problem, use facts to back up
your complaint, ask for a specific solution, and give a
deadline for resolution.
9. Take it to the streets. If, even after writing to
the company president, you receive no satisfactory
resolution to your problem, you haven’t run out of
options. You can contact a consumer group or the
government agency that oversees the company with which you
have a problem. Most local television stations also have
consumer advocates who will investigate—and air—your
complaint and help to resolve it. Bad publicity is a
strong motivator for a company to solve a customer
problem.
As a consumer, you deserve—and you should demand—good
service. Whether or not you get it is often up to you.
If you would like a discounted copy of my book, The
Customer is
Boss, for $9.95--$10 off the $19.95 cover price—simply
e-mail me at
quality@servicequality.com
and mention this article.
John Tschohl is an international service strategist and
speaker.
Described by Time and Entrepreneur magazines as a customer
service
guru, he has written several books on customer service,
including
e-Service, The Customer is Boss, Achieving Excellence
Through Customer
Service, and Ca$hing In: Make More Money, Get a Promotion,
Love Your
Job. John also has developed more than 26 customer service
training
programs that have been distributed and presented
throughout the world.
His bimonthly strategic newsletter is available online at
no charge.
You can reach John at
www.customer-service.com.
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