YSP have asked me to write a series of articles on the subject of good customer services and how to write the perfect letter of complaint. I think to do this, I would have to give examples so I will cite a few which are personally relevant to me to give you an idea of how I go about complaining and achieving desired results.

Firstly, if you receive a sub-standard product, you must bring it to the relevant company’s attention. In order to achieve high standards, companies feel very strongly about their public image and how well the public perceive them. I have had sub-standard products in the past and always responded by sending the company a hand-written letter, preferably with the sub-standard item enclosed. For example, I have had a piece of peach stone in a tin of Tesco peaches – I taped the stone to a card and sent them that to verify my complaint. I have received a piece of cherry stone in a cherry yoghurt, a piece of metal in a Mars Bar and a piece of bone in a chicken pie. In all these circumstances, I always enclosed the offending piece of foreign matter taped to a card and wrote a brief letter of complaint simply stating when and where I bought the item and how much I paid for it and the circumstances in which the offending item was discovered, then I leave it up to the company to come up with a solution.

Can I give you a recent couple of examples? In one I found an odd piece of what I thought was plastic in a yoghurt. So I taped it to a piece of card and wrote a brief handwritten letter to the company. Here is the reply in full – it is worth noting that they took a lot of time and trouble over their reply, so it illustrates how important it was to them to be able to allay any fears I may have had over a recurrence of the problem, or a reluctance to buy their product again in the future…..



Dear………..

Thank you for advising further regarding your complaint and I can advise that an appraisal of the sample you enclosed indicates plant origin, i.e. dried fruit. In view of this, we would like to take this opportunity to confirm that the following quality control checks are a regular part of our procedure.

Muller take pride in using ingredients that are regarded as wholesome and natural. Our ingredients are of the highest quality and sourced from all the world from approved suppliers and further checks are carried out prior to production. The lines are regularly cleansed between changeover of flavours and trays are removed from the first run and discarded. We can only assume that some have evaded this part of procedures and very much regret that despite our strict procedures in place you have had cause to raise this matter with us. However, we can assure you that in light of you bringing this to our attention, your complaint has prompted a review of our systems and procedures to prevent any reoccurrence of this nature and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

Clearly we regret any consumer dissatisfaction, we take these matters extremely seriously and hope that the above has somewhat allayed your concerns. Please find enclosed a gesture of the Company’s goodwill in recognition of the time and trouble you have taken to make us aware of this issue, with the hope that we have reassured you and that this will not deter you from continuing to purchase and enjoy our products. Yours sincerely
Customer relations department
Enc. Voucher £3.00



This was a transcript of the reply they sent me, verbatim. I found it very thorough and enlightening.

The second recent problem I had related to buying a huge box of cat food and inside it was an empty pouch. Completely sealed, but empty! I sent them the pouch, told them when and where I had bought the product and how much I had paid for it and this was their reply –



Dear…………

Thank you very much for contacting Purina PetCare regarding a recent purchase of Felix As Good As It Looks pouches, one of which you have found to be sealed and empty. We were most concerned to hear of your complaint and would like to apologise for the obvious inconvenience caused.

We would like to assure you that every possible precaution is taken to ensure that our products reach you in first-class condition and are correctly filled. Very stringent weight control procedures, recommended by the Weights and Measures Administration, are in force in all our factories. During the filling of pouches of petfoods each filler head is set to deposit the same volume of product into the pouches, which are then sealed before cooking.

Very occasionally, but particularly with firm chunky products, it is possible for a filler valve to become partially blocked producing the occasional pouch which may be incompletely filled or indeed empty. This usually clears itself on the next revolution and is therefore difficult for the operator or quality staff to detect.

However, please be assured full details of your complaint have been forwarded to the Quality Assurance Manager, at the factory of production and every effort will be made to prevent future reoccurrences. We are therefore most grateful to you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention.

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused and we take this opportunity to enclose £4.00 worth of vouchers, to put towards a future purchase from the range, which we hope you will try again in the future.

We are always pleased to hear from customers with any comments, and should you wish to contact us again, please do not hesitate to use the above telephone number.
Yours sincerely
Pet Care Vet Advisor



I think you will agree that both of these replies are very thorough and go a long way to alleviating any fears that you could possibly have over quality control and future purchases and to ensure this, very often vouchers are enclosed and once when I complained that a Quorn product had made my husband violently sick, I got a three page letter from them to explain that their health care section saw this as a reaction which could happen if a person was allergic to the particular vegetable protein used in the making of Quorn and they enclosed a cheque for £5.00. Obviously in this circumstance, to enclose a Quorn voucher would have been insensitive.

What do you all think? How often have you found something sub-standard, just to simply throw it away and be unhappy about it? Does it revise your view of the complaints procedure and what would you do in similar circumstances to these? I will be interested to read your replies. I have complained over sub-standards all my life from the time I first received a half empty bar of Dairy Milk aged 15.

I feel that time and money is precious and we who do surveys know this better than anyone. We should stand up for our customer rights and consumer rights as well as making companies aware of sub-standards so that they can do something about these poor standards, rectify any mistakes or problems with procedures and thereby stop anyone else from receiving sub-standard products in the future. We owe it to all consumers.