Oh hell yes. If I pay a company for something, if they go above and beyond I'll praise them to their manager, HQ or anyone I can reach, but if they screw with me, I'll rip them a new one.
The most serious one recently was I bought a fresh "Cheese and onion slice" from Tesco's bakery, I bit into it and it was something meaty (Steak Bake maybe?), I'm a vegetarian. I was nearly sick, I rang up and told them straight away so they could take them off the shelves and promptly wrote a scathing letter to Tesco HQ.
I pointed out that another supermarket was recently charged thousands of pounds for having meat in vegetarian products and that while I wasn't looking for thousands, a simple "sorry" wouldn't suffice. They sent me a £50 Tesco gift card and a letter of apology, I could probably have argued more and received more, but more important than the compensation was hopefully now they won't do it again.
They also lost my personal photos from the photo lab of the same store about a year previous, to which I rejected their compensation of free re-processing and just haven't used their service since (probably about £100 lost revenue there, not that they'd notice).
I see it as helping everyone. If people don't complain, the company won't improve, sometimes it's only through customer complaints that companies realise there's a problem. I have a letter here from Halfords HQ from where I praised a store manager for being really helpful. I went to customer services to commend a member of staff in Asda a few months back, they don't have anywhere to put them, only a complaints book. How depressing is that?
Nexy's advice for writing to companies:
If it's a complaint, type it, spellcheck it, print it and post it recorded delivery. If it's really important, send it special delivery, it gets noticed. Thankyous can be done by email.
Keep a journal of your experience, all letters, phone calls, emails etc. If you can record your phonecalls, make the other person aware and record it.
Be polite, but be forceful when appropriate. Don't break out heavy machine guns if there were 25 pieces of chocolate in your 24 piece box. If your car was sold to you without brakes, go nuclear.
Be fair, if the food was crap but the waitress was polite, friendly and helpful, write to complain about the food but praise the waitress's handling of it.
Introduce yourself: "I've been a loyal customer for *time*", "I've previously enjoyed your *product*", "This is my first time trying *product*", etc.
DO your research. If they've broken the law, point out which law they've broken. Research what governs that company or product. Check trading standards, check the watchdog (Ofcom, Ofwat etc), ask Google. Is anyone else reporting the same problem?
Blog it, post about it, submit to review sites, that way if someone else has the same problem, they can google it and see they're not alone.
The most serious one recently was I bought a fresh "Cheese and onion slice" from Tesco's bakery, I bit into it and it was something meaty (Steak Bake maybe?), I'm a vegetarian. I was nearly sick, I rang up and told them straight away so they could take them off the shelves and promptly wrote a scathing letter to Tesco HQ.
I pointed out that another supermarket was recently charged thousands of pounds for having meat in vegetarian products and that while I wasn't looking for thousands, a simple "sorry" wouldn't suffice. They sent me a £50 Tesco gift card and a letter of apology, I could probably have argued more and received more, but more important than the compensation was hopefully now they won't do it again.
They also lost my personal photos from the photo lab of the same store about a year previous, to which I rejected their compensation of free re-processing and just haven't used their service since (probably about £100 lost revenue there, not that they'd notice).
I see it as helping everyone. If people don't complain, the company won't improve, sometimes it's only through customer complaints that companies realise there's a problem. I have a letter here from Halfords HQ from where I praised a store manager for being really helpful. I went to customer services to commend a member of staff in Asda a few months back, they don't have anywhere to put them, only a complaints book. How depressing is that?
Nexy's advice for writing to companies:
If it's a complaint, type it, spellcheck it, print it and post it recorded delivery. If it's really important, send it special delivery, it gets noticed. Thankyous can be done by email.
Keep a journal of your experience, all letters, phone calls, emails etc. If you can record your phonecalls, make the other person aware and record it.
Be polite, but be forceful when appropriate. Don't break out heavy machine guns if there were 25 pieces of chocolate in your 24 piece box. If your car was sold to you without brakes, go nuclear.
Be fair, if the food was crap but the waitress was polite, friendly and helpful, write to complain about the food but praise the waitress's handling of it.
Introduce yourself: "I've been a loyal customer for *time*", "I've previously enjoyed your *product*", "This is my first time trying *product*", etc.
DO your research. If they've broken the law, point out which law they've broken. Research what governs that company or product. Check trading standards, check the watchdog (Ofcom, Ofwat etc), ask Google. Is anyone else reporting the same problem?
Blog it, post about it, submit to review sites, that way if someone else has the same problem, they can google it and see they're not alone.
)
). Cue me panicking, ranting down the phone asking what the hell has happened, and the indian woman on the other end of the line didn't speak enough english to explain it to me.
Did you post it or just email?
