Complaints and Compliments

Complaining about or complimenting products and services can be very frugal indeed. These days most companies have websites or free call numbers so it need not cost you anything except a little time.

Companies are keen to improve their products and services and can only do so with feedback from customers. Better products and services mean you don’t waste your money on substandard items and in turn will produce more income for the company in question so it helps everybody. Companies will usually refund the cost of faulty products or products that failed to meet customer expectations and will sometimes reward customer compliments also.

The keys to making a complaint that will get appropriate results are information and courtesy. Polite complaints are much more likely to result in a positive outcome for all than are abusive complaints. Explain what you did not like about the product or service and how that affected you. For example, “The Christmas Bon Bons we purchased were missing prizes in three of the eight in the packet which caused some young family members to be quite upset” or “The inexperience of the operator and extra time this cost me on a basic transaction meant that I was fifteen minutes late to an appointment.”

Information is essential for the company to improve its services and with accurate information the company is more likely to feel that you are really wanting to assist the company rather than just get a free item. The sort of information that a company is looking for is:

• time, date and place – so where you purchased the item from and when, or the branch you attended and at what time
• product details – the name of the product, the barcode, use by or packed on date and batch number
• who – if it is a service compliment or complaint you really need the name of the service person or if they are not wearing a name tag an accurate description of the person and the aisle they were working in or the service desk number they were at. The absence of a name also makes time, date and place information much more important, so they can work out who was working that shift
• Also, it is important to include any information about whether you have taken up the issue with anyone else. In the above example of slow service, you might want to state you have also contacted the head office of the branch or in a more serious complaint, the relevant ombudsman.
• If it is a product in question, it may be useful to keep a sample of the product if appropriate. If you find a foreign object in your chicken nuggets (for example) it would be helpful if you could keep the object to be sent to the company for testing.

Another important item to include is your preferred outcome. In the case of a compliment this may be recommending them for a customer service award, a bonus or a raise. In the case of a complaint it might be (following the previous examples) “Since Christmas is over and a replacement product is inappropriate, I request that the cost of the product be refunded” or “I suggest that the operator in question receive more training before being placed on the front desk and that in the future a time limit is set on transactions before a supervisor intervenes.”. If you let the company know what you expect it makes it much easier for everyone to be satisfied with the outcome. You should also let them know if you expect a reply, particularly to a service complaint. There is no reason, however, to expect or request any sort of reimbursement or replacement each and every time, particularly when the product was still usable (like if you are complaining about the badly worded and difficult to follow instructions that came with the product, or if disposable nappies leaked but were still usable). Many times the company will still supply you with a replacement or a refund.

Compliments and complaints are frugal on two levels – they improve the quality of products and services you are paying for and, on some occasions, you will be reimbursed with a refund or product replacement. I encourage you to balance out each complaint you make with a compliment to another company whose products and services you are happy with.