Complaining in a Cell Phone Store
How to complain
You were not having a bad day. It happened out of the blue. Your phone gave in, broke or was stolen. It may even be a shock bill, content services that you were not aware of or a huge data account. This is upsetting enough. Now you have to deal with a rude consultant who made it clear that you are wasting his/her time and they are passing the blame as only South Africans can do... What do you do when you cannot get satisfaction in a South African Cell phone store?
The first thing you must remember is that you have certain responsibilities when it comes to purchasing. You cannot refuse to pay your account. Pay the account and the extra usage will be sorted out by a regional or head office. There are many ways to sort this out, and hopefully your consultant will have a clue as to where to go and what to do with your query. This also means that there are certain steps and procedures that the consultant must follow and adhere to. Some things cannot be sped up and the normal turnaround time for a logged complaint is at least 48 hours. Certain difficulties have a turnaround time of 6 weeks. Refunds will only show on the following month’s bill in many cases. Trust that the consultant cannot change these times and are most likely ‘underpromising’ and hopefully going to over-deliver. This means that you may well receive feedback sooner than expected, but not likely in all cases. Patience is a virtue we often do not have, especially when we are in arrears or have a high account. However, screaming at the consultant and losing your temper means only one thing: they will make a note of your behaviour and warn every one they speak to. This is vital for staff sanity, believe it or not. We go home at night and cry in the bath with a glass of wine for hours when you have treated us this way and we will warn as many consultants as possible not to take you personally. Even call centre agents recognise your voice and will pass the problem on to another ‘idiot’ as soon as they can. This is not conducive to sorting out your problem at all and you can avoid it.
In South Africa you are allowed to record any conversation as long as one party (actually taking part in the conversation being recorded) is aware of the recording. You may therefor keep your cell phone’s voice recorder on while trying to sort out a query or complaint. This will also keep you from saying or doing something that might implicate you later, as you are aware of the conversation being recorded. Such a recording might be inadmissible in court, but many cell phone shops are franchises and the owner would love to hear how his/her staff treat customers who have a problem. Complaining is also a way of saying; you guys can do better. Please take note of this thing in your business that is not running smoothly. Complaining is vital to a business’s success and you are doing the owner or manager a huge favour by complaining the right way. Therefore, many people thank you for bringing the issue in question to their attention.
Often, we target the first person we see and unfortunately, many franchises do not have the option to do cancellations or insurance claims or even sort out a major complaint. You might ask yourself if your issue is of giant proportions, why you would complain at the smallest franchise store in the whole group. This is not the best solution – firstly make sure that the person you speak to can actually assist you. If not, take note of how to contact someone who might have more power. You might not want to know this, but sometimes you must call a certain department in order to log a complaint. There are times where you will have to send an email and not speak to anyone at all, depending on the problem. You can double check these facts on the company’s website in most circumstances.
If your behaviour is in check, you have done your paperwork and spoken to the right people, there is still a chance that you might not have satisfaction. In such a case, threatening to call your lawyer or alerting social media is going to have the opposite effect. Many big companies have an arsenal of lawyers and you are not going to get anywhere; as a matter of fact, you might get yourself into more trouble. A genuine error should be sorted out by the relevant department who can, even if they did not make the mistake themselves. If your complaint has not been sorted out, find out who the next line of defence will be and how you can contact them. The escalation process normally goes from consultant, to manager (or team leader if you are dealing with a call centre), then owner or regional office. If satisfaction has not been reached by regional or owner level, contact Icasa as soon as you can. Icasa is your last line of defence and a government organisation.
Some points to remember:
1 You may record a conversation if you are taking part in the conversation.
2 Ask questions. Ask for names, expected delivery times and serial numbers etc.
3 Write everything down and have your conversations etc in chronological order as a manager or owner may ask to see who you spoke to and when.
4 Be willing to be patient and wait for your query to be attended to. Many companies will keep updated via sms or email. Ensure that you read every piece of communication thoroughly, you might miss an important update and your query will be thrown out if you do not respond accordingly. It is after all your duty to make sure that the process runs smoothly if you want the outcome to be positive. Many companies will ask for an id to be mailed or faxed to the agent working with your case. If you refuse, you query might not be resolved and the entire process will have to be started from scratch If you do not respond to communication from the people trying to help you.
5 Never use swear words or get personal. You may well ask yourself, how can I get the most out of this situation? Telling someone off as if they are a naughty child is not going to change their behaviour and you are not their parent, hence, they will not listen to you in any case. If rude behaviour is your complaint, make sure you bypass the rude person and let the owner/manager know. Arguing with someone, especially in a busy store, will result in you being thrown out of the shop as you are disturbing the ‘buying’ customers who are in store at that time. Many owners have an arrangement with their staff to throw out a customer when he/she uses his/her FIRST SWEAR word. From the first moment you swear, you are being unruly and may be forcefully removed for upsetting other customers and mistreating staff. This is not professional behaviour and you might well argue that you are not the ‘professional’ at that time, but you are wrong. When doing business with a company, you also have responsibilities. The moment you sign that upgrade form, you sign a legal and binding contract. You are not just buying eggs from a supermarket. This brings me to the next point:
6 You need to be aware of what you sign. If you are in a hurry, then don’t sign. Come back later. Make an appointment. Never just sign without knowing the legal implications of what you are signing.
7 If no agreement can be reached, contact Icasa. If Icasa cannot help, you are welcome to contact your lawyer and/or social media. Be ready to spend lots of money as well as deal with internet trolls if you should complain on social media.
Please note that these are merely guidelines, we are not responsible for any more than providing a nudge in the right direction. This article was written with years of experience as both a customer and consultant, meaning that I have had to sort out problems with my own cell phone account at the same time when I was working for the network provider that overcharged me. It is therefore a personal plan that I would like to share with you. Please use your own discretion when using information from this article. The content is factual at the time of going to print, but this article is merely intended to be a guideline and make your life easier when you have difficulty with a communications company.
