How to Complain Using Social Media, Fan Mail and a Quick Story About Chocolate Cake

A million years ago my mother went to visit our across the street neighbor and saw an iced chocolate cake on the sideboard.

Company tonight?

No.  Just my husband and kids.

(My mother incredulous:) You baked a chocolate cake just for your family?

(Neighbor incredulous:) If I'm not going to bake for my family, then who am I going to bake for?

Beautifully put.

I bring this up, because, ladies and gentlemen, we have received some fan mail.

Is the fan mail from a personal friend of mine?

Yes.

If I'm not going to get fan mail from my friends, then who the heck am I going to get fan mail from?

The mail is a summary of a social media complaint success story that we helped inspire.

(This is where I stop writing, and I paste in the letter for you. Unedited except for the links.)

My friend Amy has been teaching me the art of complaining efficiently. And today, it got me a $700 refund in one day.

I had a horrible problem at the airport yesterday: due to a change on my outgoing flight, a customer service voided my return ticket. I was stranded at the airport with no way to get home. I tried to apply my best complaining techniques, but they were having none of it. I found myself needing to buy a full price one-way ticket to get home, which I did.

This morning, I wrote it all down, in detail. And then I did what I do best, I posted it to Facebook. On my wall, publicly, AND on the airline's Facebook wall. I got the copy-and-pasted standard response from the social media handler. But after the post got reposted a few times and they were getting a lot of 'hits' on my post, the handler promised to pass this along to the right person in customer service.

By 4 pm, I had been refunded my ticket. They didn't offer much in way of extra compensation, a discount on a future flight which I will not be taking. But it worked. Had I waited for my email complaint to work it's way to the standard 15-business day process on their website, I'm not sure it would have been as efficient. However, a well worded, detailed account of the situation, posted to the right social media outlet, and voila: complaint received and resolved.

Thank you Complaint Department for teaching me the art of efficient complaining.

(end of pasted fan mail, now it's going to be me writing again:)

I love a good, effective complaint story. Especially one where you were successful in getting your money back (and a token discount on top).

Thanks for sharing.

I guess this means I owe you a chocolate cake.