Passing it on

Next time you have cause to complain, consider asking the company to make a donation to charity, as well as compensating you.

Poor customer service irritates me greatly.  Unfortunately, it seems to be more and more commonplace; or it could just be that I become less tolerant!  I used to be able to complain quite effectively, however I now find that I am less concise and less focussed on the outcome I wish to achieve.  Luckily for me help is at hand in the form of a bible on the art of complaining, written by Helen Dewdney, the self-styled 'Complaining Cow'.   You can buy read Helen's blog and buy her book here.

Companies should encourage effective complaints and constructive criticism, but many ignore complaints or undermine the customer.  Equally many customers don't bother complaining, particularly if they don’t see any benefit to them personally from lodging a complaint.  

A recent breakfast trip to Patisserie Valerie recently gave me cause for complaint.  Despite the café being less than half full, with at least four members of staff standing around, we waited 25 minutes for scrambled eggs on toast.  When it arrived it was inedible – overcooked, cold eggs with curled up toast.  We sent it back, paid for our tea and left.  We received no apology or acknowledgement of the delay in service or quality of food. We were even made to wait for our bill, staff preferring to clear empty tables rather than serve customers still on the premises.  

I mentioned to my friend that I may write and complain.  He advised me, very sagely, to pick my battles wisely.  That was sound advice, and if I were anyone other than me it would have been heeded.  I translated this as 'why not tweet rather than email', so I did.  Patisserie Valerie asked me to email them, to which they replied that they aim for the highest standards and offered to send a complimentary voucher.  I suggested instead that they could donate the equivalent time, based on their Chief Executive's salary, to MacMillan Cancer Support.  That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard from them since.

Despite Patisserie Valerie's uncharitable rejection, it made me think that donating compensation to charity may, in some cases be beneficial to all parties.  I have previously asked a company to donate to a local charity rather than compensate me - and they actually doubled the compensation they paid.  If you have a valid complaint against a company but do not want compensation, why not ask them to donate to a charity of your choice? 

I don't know if this would work in practice, but it cannot harm to ask.  Customer service letters from many companies are little more than lip service and vouchers are useless if you don't wish to, or are unable to, use the company again.  Companies should actually take steps to ensure errors / oversights are not repeated and provide compensation.  Many companies already make charitable donations, so consumer organisations could request for compensatory charitable donations to be listed separately.  Also the customer complaining has to choose to donate and choose the charity, it must not be a way of companies avoiding liability.

One of the first sectors which should be encouraged to try this is the transport industry, particularly our privatised rail franchises.  The delay-repay scheme compensates passengers delayed by at least 30 minutes.  However, shorter delays still cause hundreds of thousands of minutes to be wasted each year.  Rail companies could make a donation of a penny per minute for every minute of delay that has not been claimed in delay-repay.  Passengers could vote each year or even each month on which local charities receive the funds.  Then some good comes out of the hours wasted by poor maintenance, badly planned staff rotas, apathy and, primarily, a focus on profit rather than provision of public transport.   

I asked Helen her thoughts on the above and she said “I don’t see why you wouldn’t complain when you have received poor service. I always say that it is best to complain at the time when at restaurants/ cafes etc. Ask to see the manager and complain. This can then be followed up with email/letter. When it comes to a simple complaint a tweet can work but not for when you want to say more than “I received poor service from xxx”. Good companies will respond but certainly not all.

As for the charity element. Personally if I wanted a company to give something to charity I would request the charity to which they send the cheque. The company may believe charity begins at home! It may also give to a charity which you have never heard of or you would rather it went to a local charity. If you have had time wasted you are entitled to redress, if you are out of pocket you are entitled to refunds/redress, but often companies will also give a goodwill gesture and when this is offered you could suggest that they increase it and give it to charity!”