Got a complaint? - Some tips

Philycheesesteak

From the gadget.show oddly enough. Some may already be covered on this site but here's some tips.

Write down your complaint so you're not side tracked or spend longer than necessary on the phone.

Fed up of "Please listen to the following 15 options: press 1 for if your remote control batteries have probably run out, press 2 if your head is sore from banging it against the computer screen waiting for your internet connection to give you an address....."

http://gethuman.com/

This site gives some of the major plays and tricks to bypass their time wasting, money spending systems to get through to a human.

However many of them still have 087 numbers which are either national rate or premium rate, yes they charge You to make a complaint. They're actually making money off their poor service

Therefore before making that call check if there is a non-0870 number for the company you're looking for

http://saynoto0870.com > http://saynoto0870.com/search.php


Another suggestion:

Sometimes you'll get through to a human, but a human who has English as their second language, who have all their words written down on scripts of paper and who may as well be classed as a robot rather than homosapian... you might consider therefore lodging your complaint via email.

Finding the email address under contact us may be easy to do, but will it get read? Will they respond in a timely manner if at all?

Why not email their CEO?

Why not?
http://www.hemscott.com/companies/company-search.do
http://ceoemails.com/
http://www.connectotel.com/marcus/ceoemail.html

4743hudsonj

thriftymanc wrote: »

It should be a requirement that all of these systems put you through to a real person if you don't press anything, or to be voice activated instead of requiring you to press a number - my telephone doesn't have buttons and it drives me insane when I ring a company up only for the menu to repeat 5 times before cutting me off! At least some of them put you through to some department or other if you don't press anything but I find that most don't, it's such a pain. (Of course, I could just get a telephone with buttons... but I don't want to!)

you mean a touchscreen? just bring up the dial pad? its not exactly practical but a damn site better than no buttons whatsoever

ERICS_MUM

4743hudsonj wrote: »

you mean a touchscreen? just bring up the dial pad? its not exactly practical but a damn site better than no buttons whatsoever

Perhaps the poster has a "retro" phone with a dial instead of the keypad buttons ?

GLEKA

Guys - got sent a link about nationalcomplaintsday.com - says can get free legal advice there from Which?

fnc63

WOW - thanks for this pwpevans - :beer:

only found this by chance while searching the forums for something else, its a truly invaluable post and one i am going to bookmark and spread the good word about

cant believe i am the first to say thanks for such a wonderfully useful and fully informative post :T

gordikin

fnc63 wrote: »

WOW - thanks for this pwpevans - :beer:

only found this by chance while searching the forums for something else, its a truly invaluable post and one i am going to bookmark and spread the good word about

cant believe i am the first to say thanks for such a wonderfully useful and fully informative post :T

....really? Do you really think that. There's nothing 'new' about any of this on MSE...I think that explains the lack of 'thanks'.

dmg24

pwpevans wrote: »

Why not email their CEO?

Why not?

Because it is stinks of self importance! :rolleyes:

If a consumer exhausts the usual complaints procedure, then it may be suitable to try to contact a more senior person in the organisation. If you start off by contacting the CEO, your complaint will just be passed back to the normal complaints team.

Philycheesesteak

Do people still have those rotary phones still?

Man they were annoying. 0 Hoddder der der der, 9 Hodder der der, 1 Hod... you get to the end and they're bloomin' engaged! No LNR!!

Who was the bright spark to have 999 the emergancy number too, you'd be dead by the time you got to the 3rd cycle!!

---

Why is it when you dial a wrong number they're always in?

trisontana

thriftymanc wrote: »

Haha, yeah they are kind of annoying but I love mine anyway!

That's actually the reason they chose 999 as the emergency number, strangely enough. The original choice was 111 but it was rejected for technical reasons, for example telephone lines banging together in the wind could trigger three pulses in a row and accidentally generate calls to the emergency number... not much chance of that happening with 999 though. Of course things have changed since the 1930s and 111 has recently been introduced as the slightly-less-emergency not-free number. Fascinating fact of the day! I've bored myself with that one.

Actually the main reason for using 999 was because of the the construction of the telephone dial, and the necessity of being to make a free call in a public phone kiosk. Once the dial went past "8" a switch was operated on the dial which bypassed the coin-slot mechanism. Thus enabling you to make an emergency call without having to put money into the slot. This was the same reason why you dialled "0" to talk to the operator.

valos_mummy

I only know the one when I worked at a bank, which was if you called the credit card department it asked you to key in a number. Don't do anything, it'll ask you again; don't press anything and then you'll get a human. Sometimes we had to call the credit card line in the branch on behalf of a customer who was in the branch with us, so I just did this, and I let the customer in on the trick too.

Darksun

Quite often you'll save time by actually paying attention to the options and selecting the correct one. If you use any of the 'tricks' to get through to a human then you may end up with someone in the wrong department who has no prior knowledge of the type of call he is receiving, you'll then probably have to spend longer explaining your issue and being transferred to the correct department.