Last week, I had what amounts to a billing issue with a company. The bank told me one thing that appeared to blame the company for the issue. I called the company, didn’t get an answer right away, and I quickly escalated the issue to the executive office. I let company President’s administrative assistant know what I thought happened, and I made it clear that I was unhappy and thought there was some sort of ethical lapse.
To make a long story short, the company investigated and it turns out it was a bank issue. For whatever reason, the bank erred in explaining what happened, and when the branch manager called the bank’s call center, the information he received was similar to mine. It took him meeting with a company representative to figure out what happened.
After learning what happened, I apologized to the company for my attitude.
I regularly see people post complaints and sometimes borderline defamatory comments about domain industry companies on forums, in blog comments, on Twitter, on review websites, and various other publications. People get upset (often rightfully), and they fire away to make sure others know about their poor experience. I don’t think this is generally the best approach.
Had I written something online about what I thought happened – which had initially been confirmed by the bank’s branch manager who was equally confused, I would have had egg on my face and had to apologize for making inaccurate statements. Depending on what I wrote and/or how much I wrote, I could have had a legal situation on my hands. This was all because my initial thought was reinforced by someone who received the same limited information that I received.
The point of this article is that it is almost always more helpful to handle things in private and find out what happened first before making public accusations. The people on the floor or who answer the phones may not have access to all of the information, and their lack of complete answers may reinforce an incorrect assumption. If a satisfactory answer is not provided, it is important to escalate the support request or complaint as high as necessary to get the right answer. Don’t publish anything or say anything until the full picture is known. Some company representatives get defensive when they are accused of something – and others may not even respond if they think it could turn into a legal issue.
Some people might say I get special treatment from industry companies because of my blog or domain portfolio. The problem I dealt with was unrelated to my business. I’m not the type of person that will settle for an unsatisfactory answer from someone nor am I someone who is going to use public venues to vent my frustration. I will escalate an issue until it is resolved. Perhaps this is annoying to some companies, but I’m sure they would rather me go with this approach than to write a negative review that is seen by many people
