As Featured on News Cult: How to Write a Customer Service Complaint

For those of you in need of a lesson in the art of customer service warfare, here’s how you write an effective complaint.

First, actually write one

People underestimate the power of the written word. When it’s in the form of a complaint. That will then be passed on to upper management. And could affect bonuses, Yelp stars, and/or Better Business Bureau ratings. Don’t be the apathetic asshole that is everyone in our society—the person who is so not content with how things go, but is too lazy to do anything about it. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Towards annihilating the corporation or customer service rep who hath wronged you.

Next, take your time

Listen, nobody wants to spend their precious free time writing a letter of complaint for something that never should’ve happened in the first place. Which is why you should write it when you’re on the clock and getting paid by your employer to do so. And don’t rush through it—you have to be strategic in your battle tactics, which requires attention to detail, thoroughness, and precise reasoning. Plus, the longer the complaint, the more serious they’ll take you—if you write a 5-page, single-spaced letter, they’re going to know you’re not fucking around.

Do your research

To further bulletproof your arguments. Look up what laws the company you’re complaining to might be breaking, which of their own policies they may be violating, what they promised you vs. what they actually delivered, etc. As soon as you start annotating your written complaint, that smirk will be wiped right the fuck off that P.O.S. Wells Fargo teller’s smug, frankly rotund, face.

Put it on letterhead

Don’t have any? Make one up. This makes it look more official. It honestly doesn’t matter what the letterhead says, as long as it’s there. You could write:

Alex Eason

Wells Fargo Can Fall Off a Bridge, Inc.

123 Blow Me Lane.

Suckadick, FU 66666-6666

and it wouldn’t matter—it’s still more professional than the way you’ve been treated as a customer.

Use big words

The goal is to intimidate the idiots you’re complaining about/to. And nothing says ‘I’m going to make you shit your pants’ more than words like “apostasy,” “reprobate,” and “demeritorious.”

Send it via certified mail

By requesting a return receipt, you’re saying, “I’m watching you, motherfuckers. I will track the shit out of my letter. Try not responding. Just try—I dare you.”

Follow up

If a company can ignore you, they will. But the only way they can is if you let them. Follow up via all communication methods possible—phone, email, snail mail, smoke signal, showing up at their doorstep. If none of that works, stage a sit-in on the front lawn of their office. If that doesn’t work, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and your local city & state governments. If that doesn’t work, take it federal. What bad customer service reps fail to understand is that we will take them to court, even if it ends up costing us more money, as a matter of principle—something they clearly know nothing about.

Go viral

Don’t just send the company that sucks a letter or email—post your condemnation of them all over the Internet. Businesses hate nothing more than having their public reputation smeared. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp—use these resources as they were meant to be used—to destroy peoples’ lives.

Featured on News Cult: http://newscult.com/complain-things-like-true-boss/