How To Get Customer Service To Give You What You Want

This time of the year can be tough for singles and people away from their homes.  I mean, Christmas and New Years back to back?  Who the heck thought that it’d be a good idea to put the two of the most family and friend-oriented holidays of the year only a week apart from each other?  Why not just make it vodka and revolver week, too?  Because, I tell ya, nothing’s more depressing than spending the last week of December eating a Hungry Man dinner in front of tube television at a Motel 6 . . . not that I would know, that is.  I have tons of family and friends . . . tons . . . *sniff . . .

Thankfully, in this technologically-advanced age of ours we have modern wonders like the internet, instant messaging, and video conferencing to quell our lonely hearts, when they work, that is.  Fortunately though, the massive Skype outage that occurred two days before Christmas was resolved within the day, just fast enough for people decide to pull their heads out of their ovens.  Skype issued an apology, of course, and even credited a dollar worth of talk time to all their customers, which in Skype currency is actually quite a good deal.

Now I’d like to say that all corporations were this generous and immediate when it comes to correcting their wrongs.  Unfortunately, as Eric Schlosser and Michael Moore have shown us, that’s hardly the case.  Generally, it seems like the only time a company will jump into action when they’ve made a mistake towards their customers is when that mistake is a big one, and even then a lot of arm-twisting can still be required.

But what about the smaller mistakes?  The ones that occur every day to individual shoppers and consumers nationwide?  How are they resolved, and can consumers even get companies to help them?  It may seem like an impossible David versus Goliath situation.  However, in the same way that David triumphed, getting a large company to give you the individual attention required to correct a wrong they’ve committed against you is actually quite possible, with a little arm-twisting of course.

The best way to illustrate how this works is by telling you an actual success story that recently happened to a friend of mine.  My friend, I’ll call her Lisa since she didn’t want me airing her dirty laundry to the world, decided to upgrade her cell phone last year.  She was signed with a major phone carrier who at the time was offering a $150 rebate the phone she wanted.  In order to qualify Lisa had to upgrade her phone plan, which she did.  However, due to a number of errors and delays from the customer service rep for the carrier, her rebate ended up getting denied by the company.  After a year of arguing with outsourced customer service reps and being turned down time and time again, she finally gave up on ever getting her rebate.

One day while meeting me for lunch, Lisa told me about her rebate woes.  She had resigned herself to eating the $150 loss.  In her words, “At least I got the phone I wanted.”  I couldn’t stand to see her like that, so I decided to step in and help as much as I could.  And after about two weeks, I was finally able to get the company to give her the $150 rebate she deserved.  Here’s how we did it.

1)      Document everything

When dealing with companies on any significant purchases, it’s always a good idea to keep a record of your interactions so that you’ll have something to refer back to in case something goes wrong.  If possible, you should even go as far as tape recording your conversations with customer service reps.  It may sound a little nutty, but it helps for later on.  Also remember to ask for names and customer service identification numbers so that you can keep track of who you’ve been talking to.  Lisa didn’t do this, however but by going back into her receipts and interviewing her about what had transpired I was able to put together a timeline of all the major events surrounding her rebate nightmare.  The reason why this timeline is important will be explained further down.

2)      Act immediately by exhausting the normal channels of customer service help and ask for supervisors

Once a problem arises, don’t wait on it.  Try to resolve it as soon as possible, especially with rebates.  A lot of time large companies will have pre-set expiration dates for their offers that once pass will make collecting on it much more difficult.  However, this doesn’t mean that once an offer has expired it’s no longer possible to collect on it, it simply means that it will require more work to do so.  Call the company’s customer service line and try to get the rep to fix your problem.  If they can’t do it, don’t be afraid to ask for their supervisor.  Sometimes the supervisor will have a little more authority than the rep to make changes.  If they can’t, then it’s time to bring out the bigger guns.

3)      Get in touch with executive customer service

All large companies have a group of “executive” customer service agents.  These reps have much more authority to authorize things you were probably told weren’t possible.  The catch is that the contact information for this level of service isn’t generally advertised by companies.  However, thankfully Google solves this problem.  Just search for the company’s name followed by executive customer service and something will usually pop up.  It should also be noted that there are varying levels of executive customer service departments within companies, with some having more authority than others.  Generally, these reps usually will be enough to solve most problems.  However in Lisa’s case, they couldn’t help either, at least not for what she wanted.  They only offered her half of the rebate and I wanted to make sure she got it all.

4)      Email company executives, consumer blogs, media outlets and the Better Business Bureau

Some blogs have named this tactic the executive email carpet bomb and it’s really an apt name.  Basically, you first have to find email addresses of all the executives in a company, as many as you can find.  Typically these email addresses aren’t advertised either, but most companies set up form email addresses such as such as [FIRST NAME].[LAST NAME]@[COMPANY].com.  It varies, but if you can get a list of executive names through Google, you can usually figure out the email address setup.

Next, write a professional, strong, and firm letter (no more than two pages, ideally one) detailing your problem and interactions with the lower customer service from your timeline (see why it’s important now?) and what you resolution you desire.  End the letter by stating you’ll send this letter to the consumer blogs, media outlets, and BBB if you don’t get what you’ve asked for.  If they still refuse, then start contacting those outlets.  You’ll be amazed at the results.  For Lisa, this was enough for her to not only get her full rebate, but also an apology and a two months of free phone service for all the trouble they put her through.

5)      Go to small claims court

If all else fails, don’t be afraid to take legal action.  This step always requires a bit of pro and con weighing, such as looking at court fees and time versus reward, but it’s something that you shouldn’t immediately dismiss.  Keep in mind that small claims court fees aren’t generally too expensive and most don’t require any knowledge of the law or even allow attorney representation.  A clear and concise recitation of your case is all that’s necessary to win.  So don’t be afraid to push for this option if everything else has failed.  Lisa didn’t have to do this, but I always kept it as an option in the back of my mind.

As a general note, throughout all your interaction with company reps regardless of the company or the nature of the dispute, it’s always good to be as polite as possible under the circumstances.  I don’t mean that you should be a pushover, however; you should stay firm to your story while also being professional.  No one wants to help a jerk.  Staying level headed will not only increase your chances at get what you deserve, it will also make you look better in any future interactions you have with the company since more often than not customer service reps keep their own notes on their interactions with you.  So in the immortal words of Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse, “Be nice.”

Also, apologies for the longer than usual blog post.  I just love helping, is all…