It Pays to Speak Up!
It really does. Gagan and I wrote an e-mail to Delta regarding the recent delays and baggage mishaps at our Costa Rica Vacation. And guess what? Both of us got $200 vouchers. While that does not make up for our lost vacation, it feels nice to be heard and it tells us that they cared about our business. In this difficult economy every little bit counts. Me, I am thrilled! Why? Because I can use this for the next PR Weekend in Portland!
While I am certainly no expert when it comes to writing, I do have a few tips I would like to share with you. If your relationship with a company/brand/vendor is important to you and you feel that you have been wronged, here’s what I would do:
1. Leave emotions out of it. Just state facts. Emotions just bring out negativity in everyone so drop it..
2. Tell them why they should care about you as their customer. Example, if you like jam, tell them you eat their jam everyday and you’ve spent a lot of money with them and like their product.
3. Be polite, don’t threaten. Again it’s going to serve no purpose. Nobody likes to be threatened.
4. If you’ve been happy with any of their service, tell them that you appreciated it. In our case we thanked them for delivering the bags to our hotel in the middle of nowhere.
5. Tell them that you’d like to continue to do business with them and would like to be compensated somehow. Don’t be greedy. Don’t expect too much. Let them decide.
6. Finally – SEND THAT E-MAIL. Don’t sit around and keep thinking that you will do it. I know we’re all busy and it’s easy to forget about it. But like I said, it pays to speak up.
I’d like to end this post by thanking Delta for making it up to us. Not that any Delta employees are reading this 😉 But that’s not the point is it?
Deepika Blogs... 