Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach;

I recognise that many people working in customer support roles have lousy jobs with lousy wages and are treated like dirt by customers and by bosses.

So my first approach is a nice, short, letter explaining the problem and asking for help. People like to help, and they like to help nice people. If I get help I always follow up with thanks to them, and if possible I find a manager to write to saying how pleased I am that a problem was sorted out by $NAME.

I agree that having your name attached to some childish ranting is not a good approach at all.

View on HN

The CC approach was something he taught me to use under 2 scenarios:

The initial interactions with customer service directly (which was to always be polite and professional) had failed, and you felt you were still in the right

They had been rude or dismissive toward your complaints, or offered no feedback whatsoever.

You never open with that, as you then have nothing to escalate to when things don't turn out well

As someone who works in support on a daily basis, I can vouch that being nice makes everything go a whole lot smoother.

The other tip I heard (which has worked for me) is to say something like "I need help to ask the right question, because I don't know how the process works. Here's what I want; what do I need to do to make that happen?". This is more for bureaucracy but also works for some customer service stuff.

As someone else who worked in customer service, this is very true. There is a lot of stuff we're not allowed to offer, but if you specifically ask for it we can give it to you. So please, ask questions, and be polite. No one calls customer service to say "everything I bought works perfectly and I'm happy with you and your company. Have an awesome day!"

I dealt with angry people just about every second of every day. The job has huge turnover for a reason. Please remember you're dealing with your fellow man, and even if you're angry, it's not (yet) his or her fault that you are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com