Complaints: It's All About Loyalty

One of the most important principles you can remember for your business communications is this: If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  In other words, you must create the desire within others to take action. 

It’s obvious to see how this principle applies when you’re motivating or persuading.  It’s less obvious, however, to see where this applies in your business writing.  So today we’ll discuss applying this principle in one very common area of business writing, and that’s writing complaint letters.

If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  Let’s imagine that you want to write a complaint.  Maybe you bought a new handphone that needed servicing and after you waited for three weeks, the authorized service center returned it to you still malfunctioning.  You need to express your dissatisfaction.  So how do you go about writing the complaint letter?

Research shows that more than half of the complaint letters that customer service people receive are expressions of anger.  Many go on to insult the company or even the customer service agent reading the letter.  Letters like this are not helpful to you, however, and are unlikely to get the results you want.  Angry letters, after all, will receive angry responses and angry customer services agents will be reluctant to make any adjustments on your behalf.

So ask yourself, how do you want the reader to feel?  If the customer service agent is going to respond positively to your complaint letter he or she has to understand your needs and feel a sense of responsibility or even accountability on the company’s behalf to keep you satisfied as a customer.  Your job as a letter writer, therefore, is to make the reader feel understanding and accountable.

How can you do this?  Most importantly, remember that your complaint letter is about YOU, the customer, and not about their product.  The reader needs to sense that you are a loyal customer whose expectations were unmet.  You can do this by explaining your normally happy experience with the product and expressing your disappointment that this time your experience is different. 

Be friendly when you suggest a solution.  Your objective is to make your reader feel obligated, not forced.  Making demands is less effective than explaining what it would take to make you happy again.

If you want to get people to do what you want them to do, you have to make them feel the way you want them to feel.  To make people feel good about responding to your complaints, make them feel good about you first.