How to complain effectively to companies

Resolver Customer Support Agent Ed Morris shares his top tips to get the most out of your complaint

As the free online complaints platform, we know about complaining; most importantly, how to do it effectively and give yourself the best chance of obtaining a satisfactory resolution to your issue. 

We wanted to share this knowledge with the people who would benefit from it the most – you. So buckle in and take a look at our three top tips for writing a top draw complaint.

1: The right tools for the job

If you have a complaint with a company head to www.resolver.co.uk. Our website is a fantastic tool for writing to companies you have an issue with. Even if you aren’t looking to raise a complaint, we have a vast collection of news articles and rights guides curated by our team of consumer experts, so you can keep yourself informed and up to date with your consumer rights. 

2: Be crystal clear on what you want 

When writing a complaint, it’s crucial that your email remains as clear, concise and relevant as possible.

Take a step back once you’ve written up the complaint and think ‘does this make sense?’. Lots of information can be helpful, but have a think about how easy it is to read and bear in mind that it’s natural for us all to skim lengthy paragraphs and content. Why not summarise with bullet points instead?

Keep in mind that it is the essentials the company needs in order to investigate your complaint effectively – our handy email templates will help a lot with this too.

3: Stay calm, and kind

I don’t think it’s any secret that complaining can often be quite a stressful and emotional experience. We’re all human at the end of the day and it can be upsetting when things go wrong or we feel that we have been shortchanged. However, it is always worth taking a moment to realise what your objective is; is it to take out your frustration, or is it to explain your problem in a way that’s going to assist the customer service team in resolving your issue to the best of their ability? 

Of course, it’s important to make a company aware of how you’re feeling if their actions have upset you. Don’t be afraid to be upfront and honest about how you are feeling, but be careful to not let this overwhelm the tone of your complaint so that it becomes tricky for the company to identify what it is you want them to do. 

To that end, customer satisfaction relies on the interactions between company and consumer. I’m sure we’ve all been on the receiving end of either a rude staff member or an angry customer at some point in our lives, and I’m sure we can agree that neither situation is particularly pleasant. According to the Institute of Customer Service, 56% of staff in customer facing roles have experienced abuse from customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course this is only one side of the coin, but it’s a clear indicator that while relations between company and consumer have perhaps (understandably) become strained, simply being kind to one another has become more important than ever before. For our part, Resolver case files automatically remove expletives from emails, so even if they are used, they won’t be visible to whoever receives them. You may not be able to see their face, but often somewhere else in front of a computer screen or on the other end of a phone is a person who is trying their best to give you some help. 

And there we have it – our top tips for writing the most constructive complaint to get the outcome you want. I hope these steps are helpful to you in getting things sorted, whatever they may be.