If you feel over-looked as a customer--sometimes all you have to do is say so...and the problem goes away!

Feel like your interests as a customer aren't taken seriously?

Recently The Wall Street Journal ran a report that showed how a once-homogeneous Flushing, NY, neighborhood was now being shared with another ethnic group--so much so that the long-standing residents began to feel that their shopping places were supplanted by the new arrivals.  Here's the story for you to see for yourself...

This white-bred-to-American-melting-pot story raises the issue of what it takes to make your point known when you need to assert yourself as a consumer.  Most people simply let their discontents fester, saying nothing; in reality that's really a very short-sighted approach to solving the problem at hand and fundamentally fails to make what you want to happen.  

There are four big ideas to remember when you complain.

In truth, most good business people welcome complaints, suggestions, recommendations from thoughtful consumers--after all, getting the prospective buyer what he or she wants paves the way to a profitable enterprise!  Here are four recommendations for making your point known when you decide to make a personal stand as a customer:

1. Always be professional and polite no matter how annoyed or angry you might be.  Never lose your cool, for when you do you largely negate your credibility and lend support to the easy conclusion to draw that you're just a wacky person with an irrational and not generalizable point of view. 

2. Give each person in the service chain, beginning with the front-line employee, a chance to help you to make your buying experience right.  When it becomes apparent that a representative of the business is unable to assist you in the way you see fit--or doesn't have the authority to "make it right," then ask for the supervisor or next level of manager until you find someone who will listen and who can take action in your favor.

3.  Ask for the name, title, and phone number of the next person to be approached, failing a satisfactory outcome in the first place if the person you need to approach when you are on the premises is not on-sight.  That you plan to take the time to make the customer's experience right--even if it's at your own expense of time and effort--impresses many managers.  When you act at some inconvenience to yourself it usually lends credence to your cause and point of view.  

4. Always make it a point to call it to the attention of a supervisor or manager when one or more employees have gone out of their way to "right" a bad buying experience for you.  You will be "paying it forward," gain a shopper's friend in the person who helped you--but got recognized for doing something right--as well as the management who oversees the operation.   Any number of people--including future customers--will appreciate what you did that was thoughtful and positive.  

Most customers fail to appreciate that complaints and suggestions are more often than not actually welcomed by businesses that are well-run; after all, how can an enterprise thrive if their existing or prospective customers are not satisfied?  And what if the management of an operation is put-off by your manifest interests?  Well, you need to know that too--you don't really want or need to do business with that organization if you can help it!  

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