My Wet Coast Life

With some pride, I can say Mission Accomplished.

Apparently, my 3,400+ letter of complaint on the terrible customer service I received from Xbox Support, which I sent in over the weekend to Xbox Support, did get seen by the right people. Before I had a chance to print and mail the letter in to the Head Office on Monday, I got a call from Xbox Corporate, not the support department. Unfortunately, I was not home at the time of the call but I got a kind message and an email stating they had tried to call. The rep provided a direct line and extension and asked me to call back at my convenience. Perfect, direct line and extension = no holds or menu system. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it was not a train.

For a quick background for those wondering what has lead up to this, my initial article was on December 26^th outlining my initial terribad call in experience. It was followed up on December 31^st by me fixing the issue myself but still no call back. On January 6^th, I finally got a call back but was blindsided by the lies and false promises that were told to me. And finally, on January 15th, still with no contact, I wrote a letter of complaint with my utter disappointment with this service I received, as my last attempt to right this wrong. That will now bring us up to today.

When I submitted my letter, I hoped maybe some action would be taken but I was not expecting the response I got. I tried to layout as much detail so they could see where the issues occurred and leave it up to them to correct it in the best manner they see fit. So I called back the corporate rep (leaving names out and will explain why later). We had a good conversation and he apologized for my experience, informed me my letter definitely got their attention and by multiple people in various levels of management. He informed me they would be using it for training purposes and enacting changes so my experience is not repeated. They even gave me a small form of accommodation, which I was not expecting and that was not the intent of my letter. My intent was to fix the wrong so others don't go through the same and so far, it appeared I have reached success. The accommodation was just a bonus for my effort.

Before we ended the call, I offered my assistance if they had anymore questions on this issue to ensure the best possible outcome for all. Based on that offer, the rep informed me an executive may want to call me later that day as he may have more questions on this issue and I accepted. This was not a guarantee as they already had the information and we ended the call on a good note.

Later in the afternoon, I did receive a call from an executive. Once again, I will leave his name out of it. We also had a positive conversation and went over the issues and possible causes. He restated the amount of stirring the pot my letter did which pleased me as it was all worth it now. They were glad they got feedback and especially in the detail I provided. I emailed him my screenshots on when I got the errors and based on them, I was even able to assist him with possibly tracking down the cause of my issue and possible remedy. Bonus.

So in the end, even though it took a couple weeks, my steps to correct this wrong hopefully will make all future calls to Xbox Support a better one for anyone else. Hopefully it will also reduce the Invalid Code errors others may be receiving, saving them from calling in, as they could fix what is causing that issue.

For those who have been wronged or received poor service and feel it necessary to speak up; I offer the following tips and steps to right your wrong. There will never be a guarantee of success BUT you will never know until you try and at least you did your diligence, so regardless, feel good about that. For those wondering why I have not provided the names, direct lines and emails of the Xbox corporate rep and executive, you do not need it in my opinion and I was successful without it. If I provided the contact info and names, you would just jump the process thus defeating the escalation process. A lot of issues you may have do not require the involvement of the people I got to deal with. I did it in the proper order of escalation in my opinion and recommend you do the same for positive results.

Follow up:

1. If you feel you are warranted and need to submit a complaint about a product or service, start by calling in to that company's customer service department and address your issue.
   
   
2. Keep CALM and do not threaten, swear or start yelling at the rep. It will get you no where fast and the rep will be less likely to offer assistance or a decent resolution if you are belittling them. They are the initial contact for the company and they do represent the company but they cannot be expected to know everything and every step. Hence different tiers. You tend to get way better service when you're nice and pleasant. Kill them with kindness and show them you are better than them and do not need to resort to yelling, screaming and threats.
   
   
3. DO NOT THREATEN TO SUE. The second you do, the company's legal wall will go up faster than you can blink and prolong any resolution as that company now needs to potentially protect itself from legal litigation.
   
   
4. ASK. You will never know the outcome unless you ask. In my case, I found my resolution unsatisfactory and ASKED to be escalated. They tend not to offer it just because (unless the issue is really warranted and the rep agrees it should be)
   
   
5. Have Patience. Sometimes, issues cannot be resolved over the phone right away. Sometimes investigations need to be done. Sadly, there are people out there that have ruined for the rest and investigations tend to be required for some issues due to potential fraud. Rome wasn't built in a day and sometimes, neither can your issue be resolved.
   
   
6. If you feel you have been wronged and still have no resolution, let them know you want to submit a complaint and ask to speak with a supervisor or manager. A lot of call centers have a processes for handling complaints. Some even have supervisors/managers available to take a call right away, others require a call back. How varies by company and if possible depends on the skills of the rep you are dealing with.
   
   
7. If you feel you complaint has fallen on deaf ears, as in my situation due to no call back from a supervisor for 10 days; time to do some research and take it to the next level only if you feel it warranted. See if you can find out who manages that department if possible and locate their mailing address of the company's head office.
   
   

8. Now if you've reached this step, time to warm up your writing skills as it is letter time. If you need something to start from, you can get a Microsoft Word template for complaint letters here. In the letter, you want to more or less outline a couple things and detail helps.

   • State which department and if possible who you were dealing with. Dates and times will help.
   • State the reason why you called in and what occurred and what you may have been expecting. Give the reason why you are not pleased with the product and/or service. Keep in mind, anyone could read this and may or may not have prior knowledge to what happened. Assume the reader has no clue what has happened to give them the full picture of the events that occurred. There is no reason for swear words and threats. Just state the facts.
   • End the letter with what action(s) you would like to see the company correct the wrong and/or what actions you plan to take such as no longer using that product, renewing a service or dealing with that company.
   • Do NOT demand stuff, ask. Your letter will not go over as well if you are just threatening and demanding free stuff. How would you react if you got that kind of letter? Do I need to continue on that point now? Good, let's move on

My letter ended up over 3,400 words (6+ pages) so a wee bit more than most typical one page complaints. You do not need to make yours this long. It comes down to what your issue was and how many words you required to explain the situation.

With your letter done and based on your research for contact information, next step is to submit a copy via email to the company or manager, whether it be via a support email or a head office email. In that message, give a brief summary of the issue mentioning your attached letter and state who else will be receiving a copy of your complaint letter. And thank them in advance for taking the time to read it and provide your contact information. Also mention if you expect a follow up or confirmation they received the complaint. Do not assume they will call you back once they receive the complaint if you do not ask. If you need a record, either CC or BCC the email to confirm if when you submitted it. They may not get the email due to a spam filter and would have a valid reason to deny ever receiving it. The CC or BCC email will help confirm that it at least sent out.

Keep in mind, most companies have no obligation to respond and at this point, you've done what you can and feel proud that you have tried to enact change for the better. Kudos to you. Most companies do not like complaints as it comes down to that marketing aspect of a person will tell only 1 person of good service but easily will tell 10 or people of bad service. This kind of negative publicity is never good for any company and most strive to quickly correct or pay the price in loss of business and customers.

So there you have it. An excellent outcome for my issue and hopefully useful steps to help you in resolving your issue or bad customer experience, should you encounter one. One last thing I don't want to leave out is compliments instead of complaints.

It is easy for us to complain but apparently harder to compliment and that should change. If you received that stellar service or the rep that went over and above what was asked for them. Let their management know they are doing it right. It only takes a couple lines in a email and can be just as beneficial as a complaint in improving the customer experience and gives good positive karma for all. In my case, I will now be sending a thank you letter to Xbox Support to thank them for listening to me and taking action. Because I feel that is now warranted to.

When was the last time you submitted a compliment?