By Kevin Hillier
I don’t want to complain but why is it that when I do, I feel guilty and I am not the one in the wrong? In this day and age – where every service provider follows up with an email survey of your customer experience – we are expected to dish out stars and ratings like a chair-spinning judge on a reality show. When it is good, it is easy, but when it is bad, it is like being interrogated by the FBI (I do watch too many US cop shows, don’t I?)
My comments about a recent service call to my house, which was less than satisfactory, turned into a more complicated questionnaire than the one to become a field agent for the FBI. Tell us why you only gave two stars? How likely are you to recommend us to your friends? What could we do to improve our service next time? Next time? Not likely!
Does complaining actually make a difference or is it just venting so we feel better? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. I wasn’t surprised to see a restaurant we visited recently in the country had gone out of business. Based on our experience, where six dishes were all sub-standard or not what was ordered or advertised, their demise was by their own hand. When we complained (and we did it nicely) the poor waitress listened and reported back. We paid and the same poor waitress was dispatched to our car to offer us compensation to be used next time. Next time? Not likely or possible as it turned out.
Some people believe, and I shared this view until recently, that the best form of complaining is never going back and telling your friends, and now that those friends include your online Facebook friends, it does make a major impact. I think the social media complaint rarely fits the crime. Make your point in person. Ruining someone’s business and reputation via keyboard is pretty cowardly, as is sending the waitress out to be the peacemaker.
We have every right to complain and to expect some action as a result but we don’t have to be rude, angry or belittling to make our point, especially to the messenger.
