To ask if you've ever had compensation for complaining..?

[thinkingoutloud4]

So I was in Tesco last week getting our weekly food shopping with my DP, when a member of staff came out of the warehouse section with a large trolley filled to the brim with produce to fill the shelves with.
The staff member didn't check behind him before moving out onto the shop floor, and pushed the trolley into my ankle causing a nasty gash, and quite a lot of blood 🥴
He was lovely and really very apologetic, I was hurt but not extremely and although he offered an ambulance 😆 I politely declined.

The store asked to take my details to make note of the accident, which I complied with and left my name and address etc for their accident log.

Anyway.. fast forward to today, and I've received a lovely letter in the post from the store manager, and a store voucher for £150. I'm completely blown away!

it got me thinking, as i remember once a friend of mine once said her sister complains as a hobby to companies and receives large amounts of free items, vouchers etc...

have you ever been sent something from a company following a complaint?

I have just sent a thank you letter back to Tesco, as I am completely shocked and so grateful for their lovely gesture!! 💖

Yes, Abel and Cole gave me £50 as a goodwill gesture after two of us had a bad reaction to some summer mackerel - it was histamine fish poisoning emj.bmj.com/content/19/5/474

Abel and Cole are v good but I must admit, I've not had mackerel since! It was a v sudden and scary reaction (face and tongue swelling up) and we were minutes away from calling 999.

I've also had compensation from Tails.com after a delivery had not been packed well and the bottom foils of dog food had all squished and leaked.

I got a compo voucher from Frankie and Benny's after a waitress gave us very poor service.

My friend asked very politely for a dessert menu. The waitress went off and started cleaning tables around us. It was about an hour before closing so understandable she would want to get jobs done but giving out a menu doesn't take long! After about 10/15 mins of waiting we asked again and she rolled her eyes at us. We had been nothing but polite, hadn't been awkward customers or anything.

I got a 4 figure amount from a well known airline after they cancelled my flight the day before I was due to fly home and advised me that I would get provided accommodation or an alternative flight home so not to arrange anything myself, they phoned at 10pm at night on the day of departure to advise me they had no accommodation available and I would have to source my own.
I was left stranded on my own with two small children with nowhere to stay as the hotel is been staying in was fully booked.
It was only down to the absolutely wonderful concierge and the kindness of strangers we managed to find somewhere to sleep as it was too late to book anywhere online.

Safe to say I put a lengthy complaint in when I got back.

@ZombieFan that's what I thought! The op sounds like my mother in law. 'Oh that lad was being such a sweetie then finds out he stole her handbag'

I randomly got a cheque for £100 from M&S credit card last week. Apparently, they had reviewed their customer services and didn't feel I had been treated to their usual standard and the cheque was by way of an apology.

I haven't had that credit card for at least 5 years!

I also, had cause to send a friendly email to Sainsbury once, because they changed the ingredients in their own brand brown sauce and it just wasn't the same anymore! It was very tongue in cheek. They sent me an equally funny reply and a £10 voucher to have another go at their new improved brown sauce.

I complain if something is really wrong. I never scream and shout I’m always polite and give the company time to resolve the issue. I work in retail and I’m always willing to go above and beyond for customers that aren’t abusive. The ones screaming in my face get the legal requirement and nothing more, luckily I work for a company that supports this.

My mum got £200 compensation when her summer dress got caught in an escalator in what was then Woolworths. In all honesty the dress was too long which she told them at the time but they sent £200 out of the blue.

@Chewingle I'd think so! We weren't planning to return any way, but I did think it was funny. It wasn't, actually, just poor customer service!

I have complained a few times, its a bit of a standing joke for those who know me, but I only complain if there is a valid reason for it.

I bought dishwasher tablets and about half of the box the little plastic bag had no tablet in, just filled with air. They sent me 6 huge boxes and an apology letter.

I bought some frozen baby carrots, and when I went to use them, they were just normal carrots chopped into smaller pieces. Now I thought this was just really not on because baby carrot are triple the price of normal ones, so I emailed them and sent a picture of the puzzle I had made of of carrot pieces which made up one normal size carrot. Got vouchers for that.

Bought some panty liners once, and I don't know what they used for the sticky part but it was was like some supersonic glue, then when I removed the liner, the cotton part came away and left the sticky bit well and truly stuck. I couldn't get it off as it was just peeling off in small bits. Thankfully the call centre agent also had a sense of humour, but I did have to chuck those undies away as it would just not budge.

And then one time, it really was our own fault. Was in the supermarket and my ds was a real handful as a toddler. He was sitting in the trolley seat and was arsing around and fidgeting. While i was in the queue to pay he starting jumping around in the seat, slipped and bashed his front teeth on the hand rail. Cut his mouth, he screamed, blood started gushing out. The next minute I hear an alarm and the red light go off at the teller I was waiting for. Here comes the first aid team running, take ds and I away to the office where they check him out. I look back and they had offloaded my trolley, had closed the till, scanned the shopping and were just waiting for me to come back to pay. I mean it wasn't the stores fault at all, they also offered to call an ambulance, I said it wasn't necessary. Next moment the manager brought ds a teddy bear from the toy section. I did feel quite awful for causing such a palava. The next day the manager of the store phoned me to see if ds was still doing ok. He is still so hyper, 20 years later and have had a fair few incidents since, but this was the only one he got a present for.....

@thosetalesofunexpected

Hi everyone

I am crap,a bit of wimp about complaining about having bad, poor customer experience from restaurants/supermarkets etc in general.

Is there anybody on this Post Thread here who is really good at knowing what to say and do ect, whenever they have recieved unsatisfactory customer service.

As i really would appreciate and I know others like myself would too,
If someone/or anybody here, would do a follow up Post Thread
on how to Complain effectively ect.
😕

I wait in anticipation.
fingers crossed .

The first bit of advice on complaining is to be polite. Second is to stick to facts, not be emotional.

A normal complaint from me (& yes I do complain fairly regularly) is to send them something like:

Dear Company

COMPLAINT ABOUT WHATEVERS & EMPLOYEE GEORGE

I normally really enjoy your products and the staff usually provide excellent customer service so I must admit I was surprised by what happened the other day.

I went into your shop on X Road and bought my usual brand of "whatevers". When I got them home I was disappointed to find they were very stale/full of glass/worms etc. I took them back to the shop at 2 pm the same day but George on Customer Service said I was a fat liar. I left the shop in tears.

I would like you to review your stock of "whatevers" to ensure no one else is disappointed as I was. I also suggest that you provide George with a review on your customer service processes as his attitude will very likely lose you customers.

Please find enclose/attached photo of the "whatevers" including the barcode to aid your stock tracking. Also included is a copy of my receipt and a photo of George making pig faces at me as I left your shop.

I look forward to your response.

Name
home & email address

Complained about Costa staff, in Covid, during summer time when places were opened. there's a huge marker on every table saying do not sit till staff has cleaned it, so we're waiting. Except the staff lady walks straight past us and cleaned the table behind us, we thought she must be coming to us next. Nope. Walked right past us and started making the drinks. I had to then go ask her whilst she seemed annoyed I asked! She also forgot the cream I paid for.
Costa gave £6 on my card. Come to think of it. Should've been more.

With my first waitrose click and collect, my partner collected it as I'd just given birth a week earlier and was not quite ready to leave the house. When he got home I found that half was my shopping, half someone else's. They gave us a £30 gift voucher, flowers, deluxe cakes and a box of chocolates, and told us to keep the items we hadn't ordered, 4 bags full. I thought it very very generous of them, specially as I work in retail myself and I'm aware mistakes happen all the time.

I ordered a vegetarian meal in a restaurant (I am vegetarian). There was an option to have meat with it, but it was an extra, as opposed to having meat removed to make it vegetarian.
Was halfway through my meal, which I thought tasted a bit salty, before I saw it had bacon in it. Called a passing waiter who just said oh, do you want another then? And took it back to the kitchen. I did not want another. I had to ask for it to be removed from the bill too. It was still bothering me so when I got home I complained about vegetarian food evidently not being prepared separately from other dishes, and the waiters reaction. The manager replied with a £200 voucher!

When my brother died I had to notify various providers and utilities all of which went well, was easy to do and was promptly replied to except for Barclays. They acknowledged nothing for over four months, despite emails and using their help website. Eventually credited £200 to his account because " they never got round to it.' However they were very swift referring it to collection solicitors once they realised money was owed to them.

I got £100 from Asda once. They didn’t deliver my shopping one day (almost 9 years ago now) & tried to say I wasn’t home. But I was. It was September & I’d been tidying the front garden for the whole afternoon. No van had come.

At the time, my mum was seriously poorly in hospital. Part of the shopping was a few snacks & drinks she had requested - specific things she just fancied. I went to visit her later that evening but of course couldn’t take the items as the shopping hadn’t been delivered at that point.

The next day, the exact same thing happened again. No delivery. Same driver said nobody was home. I was. Allegedly Asda were sending a different driver to deliver that evening. I went to visit my mum again & remember she was disappointed that I still didn’t have her squash yet. She wasn’t high maintenance but had been looking forward to it. I told her I would bring it the next day.

That night she took a sudden turn for the worse & to cut a long story short, passed away at 11am the next day.

I got home from saying goodbye to her & still there was no shopping. I fired off an e-Mail to the CEO’s office (I appreciate they don’t actually read the things themselves) and received the value of my order plus £100 refunded into my account.

I know I could have visited another shop to buy the items but I kept thinking “oh it’s coming later today, it’ll be fine”. And nobody expected mum to die quite that soon.

Not at all Asda’s fault she died of course, but the mistakes had led to me not being able to do the very last thing she asked me to do for her. Given the circumstances, the email may have been quite emotional I guess.

I got £300 compensation once when my breakdown company left me stranded in a dangerous situation. I broke down at 4:30pm and got home after midnight. As luck would have it, the AA were attending a breakdown nearby. He saw my situation and came to check I was ok. I signed up there and then. He finished his current callout and got me back on the road and even followed me the hour home to check everything was ok. I’ll never leave the AA now.

I’m not a serial complainer but I will complain if service is below par.

Not my story but my aunt's.

I had an aunty who once purchased some small cakes with little chocolate chips/chunks on top from a local cake shop.

At tea time, she bit into one. They were not chocolate chips. They were mouse droppings.

She complained.

Her compensation, free cakes from same shop.

Erm...no thanks.

I reckon there could be a career in this - professional complaining

When my DC were in primary school, I ran the 'Pick a Lolly' stall at the school fetes (I ran it about 11 times)

I bought over 400 lollies for each school fete and realised that most bags of drum stick lollies didn't have the amount they said they would contain, I know it is average contents but most were less.

I emailed to complain as I had to go and get more and it did add up in both time and money.

They sent me a huge box as an apology, all were happily used at the next fete where we had more drumsticks than any other kind of lolly.

The most I got was £800 from TSB when their massive IT failure nearly messed up our house move.

The best I got was on a girls holiday - young waitress bringing over a tray full of cocktails and ends up pouring the lot over my head (luckily the glasses stayed on the tray and it was just sticky grossness rather than dangerous). Owner was mortified, waitress nearly in tears, and offers free drinks for the whole table. I went back (luckily close by) to shower and change and when I return the owner insists I bring my outfit to her so she can get it dry cleaned. The next night I drop off the dress and we get more free drinks, and again when I went to pick it up the following day. Ended up being our favourite bar of the holiday!

Slipped on a grape and went flying at eight months pregnant.
Taken to hospital and monitored but eventually released , all ok.
I never complained but received £250 of vouchers , three weeks before Christmas!

Similar to a PP. I only complain when something is awful, in the hope that the company can fix the issue.

Two Molton Brown ones. Did a large order a couple of years ago. It arrived badly squashed into the box, which had caused the free shower gel sample to leak all over the order. Molton Brown completely replaced the whole order, which also arrived packed in the exact same way as the first. Slight leak in the second order, but cba to complain again.

This month I bought DH a Molton Brown hand wash (the new glass bottle one) with the refill soap pouch for Valentines Day. Box arrives, and the plastic refill pouch is protected in a separate box (why?) and the heavy glass hand wash bottle is unwrapped and completely loose in the box, together with the free perfume sample, which it has squashed and completely shattered. Box has tiny glass shards in it, which have badly scratched the glass hand wash bottle.

I emailed Molton Brown, and sent photos. Have just received an email from them saying that they're sending a new glass hand wash and the free perfume sample 🤦‍♀️. Fingers crossed that they've improved their packing after my email, but I'm not too hopeful after my previous experience.

Doubt that I will be ordering from them again.

I tripped over a pallet which was sticking out from under a display in Curry's. I bruised my leg. They sent me a cheque for £1000

I got £350 out of the council for the appalling way the enforcement officer treated me and our property.

Luckily the dogs were shut in the day he trespassed on our property or he would have had far worse issues than my complaint. He was sacked a few months after as my case was the straw that broke the camels back for the legal department.

Yes-£2000 from a gas/electric company.

We moved into a new house, told the utilities companies, all fine. Started getting gas bills for the previous owners with Huge debt. Called gas company 3 different times in the next 3 months as letters kept arriving and was assured each time it was an error, records now updated etc.

Came home late one night in December and we'd been burgled (so we thought)as the contents of our stair cupboard was strewn everywhere. Exited sharply and called the police. Crying, terrified children.

DH went in as had had enough of waiting (causing hysterics from our 8 year old who thought he was going to get killed by a burglar). Found a bailiffs notice on the kitchen counter. Bailiffs had forced entry to fit token meters due to the debt of previous owner. And left all the contents of our understairs cupboard literally thrown everywhere. All the bedroom doors were open (we Always close them) and they'd been in every room which is Standard procedure apparently.

To top it off, their gas engineer fucked up and capped the gas meter incorrectly so a local gas engineer wouldn't take the cap off... and it took 4 days of me screaming down the phone at the company for them to come out and pull the token meters out and fix it. 4 days in December with no heating or hot water.

Obviously I got grovelling apologies for their 'admin error' and £2k but it still makes me angry thinking about it! Ds2 wouldn't sleep alone for a week worrying about strange men breaking in.