Making a complaint to a retailer and processes.

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mattwnz

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#1704929 17-Jan-2017 22:18

1eStar: Some people just like to complain. About their complaint. The weather can bring it on sometimes.

Or maybe many people don't have high standards, and don't mind being treated poorly. This is why I said, is this something that is to be expected in 2017. Maybe it is just the sign of the times.

networkn

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#1704930 17-Jan-2017 22:19

My gut feeling on this, is that had this of been the post of another GZ user, you would very likely have the same advice for them, you have been given, which is that the company really owes you nothing, given there is no law that says they must meet a particular standard. Some companies would provide an explanation, others may not. I can understand you feeling you need closure given you were wronged, but my suggestion, which I believe would be the same in reverse, is that you move on with more productive uses of your time, and let it pass by you. You have provided the feedback, and if you don't like the way the company handled it, vote with your feet.

mattwnz

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#1704931 17-Jan-2017 22:26

networkn:

My gut feeling on this, is that had this of been the post of another GZ user, you would very likely have the same advice for them, you have been given, which is that the company really owes you nothing, given there is no law that says they must meet a particular standard. Some companies would provide an explanation, others may not. I can understand you feeling you need closure given you were wronged, but my suggestion, which I believe would be the same in reverse, is that you move on with more productive uses of your time, and let it pass by you. You have provided the feedback, and if you don't like the way the company handled it, vote with your feet.

Good advice, and sometimes I do think we need to look at things from the other side, as we can get blind-sighted. Think I will vote with my feet and stick to online stores in the future, as far less hassle, and generally customer service is better.

dejadeadnz

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#1704942 17-Jan-2017 22:34

mattwnz:

It isn't relevant, because the store has already admitted they were wrong and that I received poor service, and provided an apology. SO that isn't the purpose of my post. My issue is that they didn't provide an explanation and what they were going to do to prevent it reoccurring. As per my link to the governments website about how businesses manage complaints, it is best practice to do this.

You are right that it may cost them time to do this however I also spent a significant amount of time to write the complaint in the first place, which they are benefiting from, as now supposedly my information is now in their internal systems.

I come from a background of working in Group Risk an employee and secondee for multiple large, listed companies. One of my responsibilities included investigating serious complaints against staff and devising internal policies on handling complaints, so I have some background that might be of use here.

As a general proposition, it's simply wrong to say that best practice requires a business to provide detailed information as to what went wrong and what they will do to prevent similar things from happening again. If they've wronged you, what they owe you morally is an apology and suitable redress. Whether you have received the latter, I can't comment and no one knows because we don't have this information. Simply put, the business isn't morally or legally accountable to you: you presumably aren't a shareholder. They don't have to explain themselves.

Beyond this, there are many practical reasons why a retailer might not want to engage in detail in your situation. Firstly, unlike (say) a bank, they are unlikely to have a bunch of risk/specialist complaints-handling professionals that have both the skills to investigate your issue in detail and to communicate back to the customer in a way that is compatible with internal risk appetite. It's easy for you to say that you invested time and doing this can't be that hard. As someone who's been on the other side, I can assure you that it can be. Someone who makes a half-assed effort will, upon being challenged by you, potentially expose his/her company to further embarrassment. Engaging in detail can potentially require the "investigator" to engage with employees concerned multiple times, test and re-test contentious propositions, and potentially require legal and other professional input even if events are not deemed serious enough to warrant disciplinary action. Then there's the issue that when the findings are made, it will take some degree of skill to put a response together that is fair, factual, and without unnecessarily exposing internal processes and the like. And the company runs the risk of any written response being widely disseminated, taken out of context in online campaigns, and the like. They probably don't know you from a bar of soap.

And sometimes what might be a very bad experience from a customer perspective can result from systemic issues rather than intentional wrongdoing. Most companies are understandably reluctant to go into detail about their operations. To be frank, given that (if my memory serves me) you don't exactly live in some backwater and presumably have choices of retailers, you'd be better off getting on with your life rather than stewing over this.

Linux

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#1704956 17-Jan-2017 23:18

^^^^^^^ This man knows his stuff

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dejadeadnz

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#1704959 17-Jan-2017 23:32

In one of my roles I had to take over a half-completed investigation by a very well meaning mid-level manager. Without the person having issued any adverse findings, simply through being far too relentless (out of good intentions) it ended up dragging in multiple unions and lawyers, with lots of upset people, and C-suite involvement. It also occupied two of the most senior people in Group Risk, all for pretty much a much ado about nothing. Things aren't all a one-way street when it comes to handling complaints - lots of companies do it terribly but a lot of people take things seriously without songing and dancing about it. I know I and quite a few of the different GMs I worked for did.

Aredwood

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#1704978 18-Jan-2017 02:51

Since the complaint is about lack of staff. It could be as simple as staff members calling in sick or failing to come to work when they should. Assuming those staff members had previously been reliable I can't see what else the company could have done to prevent that from happening.

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#1705055 18-Jan-2017 09:56

Re OP. you think online store will treat you better? I think it's just one of those things that happens. it happens.

Now on a slight tangent one of my colleagues came to me in tears because her husband forced her to ring slingshot about a deal* he was offered, after talking to them she says no i don't want to switch my ISP to slingshot and well slingshot just did it anyway, and she had a house full of guests and no internet over christmas and now has a bill of $250. Now that's bad. (I believe her because there are threads on GZ with exactly the same tactics by certain ISPs)

*Which I had pointed out to her (before all this drama) that her own ISP, Spark would easily match should she call them up and demand to be on their current pricing plans + 3 months free if getting a contract - for some reason prices have freefallen over time but Spark has been charging them last century's prices. Now that's also bad!

dolsen

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#1705061 18-Jan-2017 10:07

It's annoying when the store doesn't get back to you when they say they would. Last year I made a complaint to KFC head office about the Johnsonville store. The upstairs eating area stunk of smoke. What had happened was that two staff members had jammed the upstairs emergency exit open (leaving objects in the path of the emergency exit) and were having a smoke outside. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the smoke back inside (which, as a non smoker, is very unpleasant when you are trying to eat). Having the smell of smoke in an eating area from staff members as well as blocking an emergency exit I would consider to be fairly serious issues for the Franchiser to investigate.

At the time, their contact us page had a checkbox asking if you would like them to contact you about their feedback. I checked this, however, I have not heard anything back from them.

If you have a page asking if you would like your complaint to be responded to, and then do not respond to the complaint when the customer specifically opts in to receive a response, your handling of the complaint is pretty poor and gives a bad impression of your business.

networkn

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#1705073 18-Jan-2017 10:21

dolsen:

It's annoying when the store doesn't get back to you when they say they would. Last year I made a complaint to KFC head office about the Johnsonville store. The upstairs eating area stunk of smoke. What had happened was that two staff members had jammed the upstairs emergency exit open (leaving objects in the path of the emergency exit) and were having a smoke outside. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the smoke back inside (which, as a non smoker, is very unpleasant when you are trying to eat). Having the smell of smoke in an eating area from staff members as well as blocking an emergency exit I would consider to be fairly serious issues for the Franchiser to investigate.

At the time, their contact us page had a checkbox asking if you would like them to contact you about their feedback. I checked this, however, I have not heard anything back from them.

If you have a page asking if you would like your complaint to be responded to, and then do not respond to the complaint when the customer specifically opts in to receive a response, your handling of the complaint is pretty poor and gives a bad impression of your business.

I have found that in my estimation, 50% of the sites on the internet with contact us areas, don't work. They are either emailed to someone who has left, the function is broken after an email system migration, or the site isn't maintained and the actual code is obselete or non functioning.

MadEngineer

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#1705117 18-Jan-2017 10:58

Or you get: I'm sorry to hear you didn't like our product. Here's a voucher or come back to our store so you can get some more on us!

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Jas777

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#1705288 18-Jan-2017 15:38

Another reason you may not have been contacted is that an agreement between the employer and employee about what happened that resulted in the employee leaving may have a clause that the matter can't be communicated to a third party.

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