Monday, November 5, 2007 - 2:40 PM MST

The Business Journal of Phoenix - by Mike Sunnucks Phoenix Business Journal

US Airways Group Inc. had the highest percentage of consumer complaints of major U.S. airlines for the month of September as well as for the first nine months of the year.

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported Monday that US Airways (NYSE:LCC) had 2.13 complaints for every 100,000 passengers. That ranked the Tempe-based airline 20th among the top 20 major U.S. carriers. Delta Air Lines was next in line with 2.11 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Aloha Airlines scored the best with no complaints during September.

US Airways also had the highest percentage of consumer gripes for January through September with 3.43 complaints per 100,000 passengers, followed by United Airlines. Aloha had the best score followed by Southwest Airlines, according to the USDOT.

The New York Times - Hillary Chura

As the power of the Internet grows, businesses small and large find themselves confounded by disenchanted employees, suppliers and competitors who seek fertile ground to air grievances online.

Armed with little more than a Web connection and a keyboard, these detractors can do everything from irritate, via a scathing review, to causing serious business problems by using message boards to reveal company secrets or spread rumors of unethical behavior. They may also start a gripe site or register a Web address in their target’s name.

“There is all type of damage by miscreants on the Web to a business,” said Marc S. Friedman, chairman of the intellectual property practice at Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross in Manhattan. “The number of methods depends only on the creativity of the wrongdoer.”

For Katie Lambert, it was anonymous postings on AOL’s Yellow Pages about the gym she owns, Go Figure, in Westwood, Mass. The gym, the postings said, was overpriced, crowded and chaotic. Ms. Lambert didn’t learn of the comments until a member alerted her. When some loyal customers found out about the review, they went online and responded positively, but the detractor always shot back. Ms. Lambert said she tried to contact AOL but could never reach anyone who could remove the material.

“Anybody can write anything in the world, whether it’s true or not. It could be affecting my business right now,” Ms. Lambert said. She said she ultimately realized the postings came from a member who didn’t want to pay a $100 cancellation fee to get out of her contract. Ms. Lambert’s lawyer wrote the woman, asking that the false comments stop. They did, and Ms. Lambert said she learned that companies should periodically check what is being said about them online.

Business is not alone in such frustrations. Politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton, authors like Patricia Cornwell as well as other public and private individuals find themselves in the cross hairs of commentators emboldened by the anonymity of cyberspace. But such postings can do more than just irritate; financial damages can reach millions of dollars or shut down a business entirely.

Remedies vary by case and by state, but lawyers, Internet specialists and others counsel that the best course with may be to ignore irritating posts because trying to squelch a malcontent can have unintended consequences.

“Your reaction often, if you’re a small business, is to get angry and to fire off a letter,” said Barry Werbin, an intellectual property lawyer at Herrick, Feinstein in New York. “Some big companies do it. More often than not, the person who posts the gripe site can’t wait to get that letter and post it.”

Sometimes, Mr. Werbin added, “it can worsen the damage because it just fuels the fire.”

Assuming that the posting activity is not illegal or defamatory and truly damages a business rather than just an ego, there may be better ways to respond. Scurrilous opinions often appear on Web sites including Yahoo message boards, AOL and MySpace. Those sites may remove objectionable material if asked but are not legally required to do so. Even if they do remove it, the damage may already have been done. Besides, even if the comments are taken down, a determined whiner can find any number of other venues. Other online review sites, like Yelp or TripAdvisor, are particularly influential.

“New consumer opinion gets posted about every five seconds,” said Rob Crumpler, chief executive of Buzz Logic, which helps businesses identify influential bloggers.

Samantha DiGennaro, who runs her own strategic communications consulting firm in New York, says many companies either run scared from electronic media or fail to realize how quickly negative comments can jet around the Internet.

“People think, ‘It’s only on the Web. It’s not that important.’ But it’s almost more important than a newspaper or something in print,” she said. “Things live in perpetuity on the Web.”

Some large marketers may blog or respond anonymously. Ms. DiGennaro said appropriate responses were not one size fits all and must be tailored to the particular case. If something merits being addressed, she said, it can better be done in the name of the company rather than hiding behind anonymous postings.

On the technical front, a search engine optimization expert can tweak a site so that it moves a positive posting higher in an Internet search, tending to bury the negative one. Shailen Lodhia, vice president for sales at Submit Express, an optimization firm in Burbank, Calif., estimated results could take three months to a year, and monthly retainers could exceed $3,000.

The best defense is a good offense. Useful practices include registering personalized e-mail addresses as well as gripe domain names — not with the intention of using them but to prevent others doing so. Registering common misspellings as well as derogatory domain names is a good precaution and so is covering extensions like .biz and .org. Costs are minimal, some lower than $50 a year.

Companies that sell products or services should trademark their name to prevent others from using it as a domain name without authorization, legal experts said. Executives may find their only recourse is to sue if someone registers their name as a U.R.L. and uses it to defame them, said Mr. Friedman of Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross. He said that few companies thought to buy potentially negative domain names. Debra Condren, a business psychologist and career adviser, said the occasional negative comment could actually lend credibility to a company rather than tarnish it. She said people expected to see a range of opinions, and if they saw only positive ones on a company blog, for example, they might suspect that negative feedback was being censored. A range of opinions seems authentic.

“Some people, for whatever reason, aren’t going to like or appreciate what you’re selling,” she said. “Accept this as normal, and you won’t stay awake at night letting a disgruntled client or a negative person who decided not to use your services bring you down with what will be transparently obvious to most people as sour grapes feedback.”

Angie Hicks, founder of Angie’s List, a member-generated ratings service where users report their positive or negative experiences with local contractors, said every company gets complaints at some time, but the way it responds can be more telling than the complaint itself.

“You can really see how that company is going to stand by their work based on how they handle problems that come up,” she said.

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 The Street.com - Jeffrey Strain

In a perfect world, everything that we purchase would work exactly how we thought it would and there would never be any problems.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and the chances are that there are going to be times when things we spend money on move us to make a complaint.

The news and Internet are full of examples of problems between businesses and their customers. Consumer complaints with airlines more than doubledin July to a five-year high. And if you check your local Better Business Bureau, it will likely have plenty of complaints about businesses near you.

Initial Steps

If you find yourself in a situation where you are unsatisfied with the product or service you received, you need to know how to act before you even consider a complaint:

Stay calm: No matter how upset you are, remain calm (but firm). Getting angry and shouting isn’t going to solve your problem any quicker and will likely make resolving it more difficult.

Remain polite: Again, even if this is difficult, always remain polite. Being rude is not going to win you any points and will make it much more difficult to resolve the issue.

Get names: Be sure to get the name of every person you talk to at the beginning of the conversation and have them repeat or spell it, so they know that you have recorded it.

Keep detailed notes: Write down key details of any conversation you have with particular emphasis to any promises that are made. Before ending the conversation, repeat everything of substance to confirm that what you’ve written is correct.

Know what you want: Let the company know exactly what you want to resolve the issue. By letting them know, they don’t have to guess, and it is more likely that you will be offered a resolution that you expect.

Be flexible (when appropriate): If you know exactly what you want and nothing else is going to satisfy you, stick to your guns, but realize that in many situations, being flexible can go a long way toward resolving the issue faster.

How to Complain

With these in mind, here is how to go about effectively complaining to resolve the issue:

Act quickly: Your best bet to resolve a problem is to act as soon as you see the problem. That means if the problem comes to light while you’re still at the store, take up the complaint then and there. If it happens at another point, don’t wait a week before doing anything. The sooner, the better.

Contact the company: If it is a situation where you cannot solve the issue immediately on the premises, then contact the company’s corporate consumer-affairs department by email, online form or phone as soon as possible. You may want to take a few minutes before contacting to write down all the pertinent information that you have so you can give it quickly and efficiently.

Ask for a manager: If you don’t seem to be getting anywhere with your complaint at first, ask to speak with a manager. Generally, the higher the position of the person you talk with, the more authority they will have in solving the issue.

Write a letter: The next step to take if a phone call doesn’t resolve the issue is to place your complaint in writing. Be concise (keep it to a single page) with only the relevant facts, and state what you want. Make sure to include a time period you expect to receive a response to your letter and ask that they reply by written letter. Send it to the company by registered mail and keep a copy for yourself. If you aren’t sure how to write a quality complaint letter, there are plenty of free templates on the Internet.

Take It to the Next Level

If the previous steps have not resolved the issue, then you will need to decide whether it is worth the time and effort to continue to pursue it. If you do decide to escalate the issue, you need to understand what it will take to get the company to listen to you.

“The most important thing a consumer can do to help quickly resolve a dispute is to figure out a way to let the company know it will cost them more to ignore you than to solve your problem. The book Unscrewed by Ron Burley contains a veritable arsenal of effective techniques on that subject,” advises Ben Popken, editor of a consumer-focused blog.

If it is necessary to take it to the next level, here are some additional steps you can take to try and resolve the problem.

Contact relevant organizations: Contact any relevant organization that might have influence:

• Your local Better Business Bureau
• Federal Trade Commission
• State consumer office
• Any overseeing bodies for that particular product or service

These complaints can have an effect on local businesses, and most will want to resolve the issue so it doesn’t damage their reputation.

Contact online Web sites: There are a growing number of Web sites and blogs, like The Consumerist, that let consumers make public, online complaints, which can generate publicity that helps to get the problem resolved:

• Complaints.com
• Consumer Affairs.com
• Ripoff Report

Contact your local media: Many local TV stations and newspapers now have consumer reporters who are always looking for a good story in which someone has been wronged. They can use their media clout to help resolve the issue.

Small-claims court: If all else fails, consider going to small-claims court to resolve the issue. You will need to do a bit of research to make sure that you can actually make a claim there, but if you can, it is relatively inexpensive (usually under $100) to file a claim, and you will get your day to convince a judge that you deserve what you have been demanding.

Unsatisfactory service or buying a product of disappointing quality is never a fun experience. But knowing what you can do to resolve the problem can help settle the dispute as pleasantly and efficiently as possible - while still making sure that your voice is heard loudly and clearly by the offending company.

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Baja Fresh Mexican Grill has partnered with Service Intelligence, a leading North American provider of mystery shopping, customer surveys, and compliance evaluations, to gauge customer perceptions and expectations. Shoppers pose as ordinary customers but are actually assessing and evaluating their experiences looking for a host of data points, which all get reported back to the organization. Service Intelligence shoppers began conducting shops in May of this year. Both “Dine-in” and “Phone Ahead/Take-out” shops are being conducted at all Baja Fresh restaurant locations in 27 states.Baja Fresh chose to utilize mystery shopping to obtain insight on those critical frontline employee/customer interactions as well as satisfaction with restaurant and food quality. The franchise wants to further ensure that product quality and customer service are consistent with every customer at every location across the country.

Steve Reynolds, Vice President of Sales for Service Intelligence, states, “Baja Fresh is a rapidly growing chain that places high importance on consistency and brand representation. They appreciate that customer perception is a key driver of success and have initiated a customer experience evaluation program to enhance an already stellar record. Service Intelligence is excited to be working with Baja Fresh, and we look forward to helping them identify possible areas for improvement.”

Through the program, Service Intelligence collects, aggregates, analyzes, and disseminates data specific to consumer experiences. With this data, Service Intelligence is able to cultivate the connection between consumer intelligence and business strengths or opportunities, ultimately translating such into tangible operational recommendations.

“Hiring Service Intelligence as our mystery shopping partner demonstrates our ongoing commitment to delivering the highest possible level of customer satisfaction,” said James Walker, President of Baja Fresh. “Service Intelligence assists us in assuring that each and every customer receives the very best food quality and customer service and they are truly our partners in this ongoing process.”

Paul Hector, Vice President of Business Solutions for Service Intelligence, adds, “By consistently gauging measureable variables, we can gather valuable data, which allows us to spot trends in both highs and lows. Our objective is to deliver recommendations to our clients that will improve their operations and positively impact top-line and bottom-line revenues.” Hector continues, “Baja Fresh has had tremendous success to date, and they have called on Service Intelligence to continue this momentum. Every consumer-centric industry wants to know what their customers are thinking and what will encourage them to return and repurchase. Service Intelligence helps clients draw the blueprint.”

About Baja Fresh

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Baja Fresh operates or franchises 291 restaurants nationwide, all featuring its fresh Mexican-inspired food, made to order and served in a hurry.

Baja Fresh was named as the Platinum award-winning Mexican Chain in America by Restaurants & Institutions Consumer’s Choice in Chains study in July 2007.

Learn more about Baja Fresh at www.bajafresh.com.

Consumer Watch - Richard J. Dalton Jr.

Norma Freedman received notification in May that a movie from the Columbia House mail-order DVD company would be sent, but she didn’t receive the usual code used to cancel the order. So she did what many people would do: She called the company.

And, like many consumers calling a customer-service number, she reached an automated service that couldn’t resolve her problem and wouldn’t provide a agent.

That inability to reach a live representative is one of the top complaints of consumers calling customer-service centers, according to experts and surveys of the customer-service industry.

And the problem is becoming increasingly common as companies try to divert callers to their Web sites or provide more services via voice-response systems to save money, experts said.

“Making it hard to talk to an agent really hurts companies in their satisfaction ratings,” said Peter Leppik, co-founder and chief executive of Vocal Laboratories, a Minneapolis company that surveys people after customers place a service call. “But the reason why they do it is that talking to an agent is expensive and using automation is cheap.”

While touch-tone services, which prompt customers to press a button on a phone, can provide only a limited menu of services, companies are increasingly adding voice-response systems, which allow callers to respond verbally.

A recent study by Forrester Research, a market research company in Cambridge, Mass., found that 28 percent of companies have voice-response systems or are rolling them out, and 22 percent are evaluating such systems.

But customer-service calls to cellular phone companies handled by a computerized automated phone system receive significantly lower ratings than those handled by a live representative, according to a recent survey by J.D. Power and Associates, a Westlake Village, Calif., company that conducts market research and measures customer satisfaction.

Experts said good automated systems that have simple menus and allow customers to reach an agent receive good ratings from customers. But many systems have complicated menus, use industry jargon and require customers to enter information multiple times, only to repeat the information if they do reach a live agent, Leppik said.

So while voice-response systems can handle a large variety of queries, such as a change-of-address request, companies should still allow callers to reach a human, said Jonathan Brookner, director of certification programs for J.D. Power.

“It can be a devil or an angel, depending on how it’s used,” he said, adding that companies shouldn’t let customers “get trapped in a voice-response system that they can’t get out of.”

In June, Columbia House, part of Direct Group North America based in Manhattan, changed its policy, allowing those with an account number to reach a live representative, spokeswoman Paula Batson said.

“Columbia House is always seeking ways to improve communication with our customers,” she said.

Freedman, who said Columbia House resolved the problems with her DVD order, said she is pleased she’ll be able to speak to an agent in future calls.

St. Albans resident Elizabeth Gittens, 43, said automated services work fine for simple requests, such as checking a bank account balance. But after a truck recently knocked down telephone lines in front of her home, she said, Verizon’s automated system for phone repair didn’t provide assistance.

Heather Wilner, a spokeswoman for Verizon, said the automated system had recorded a repair request when Gittens initially called. Gittens said she wasn’t aware that the system actually processed her request. And after she reached a representative three days following the incident, Verizon fixed the service within two hours.

Michael Skudin, 63, a handyman in Levittown, said some companies make it especially difficult for customers to cancel a service via their automated service.

When he called to cancel Sprint Nextel cellular service within the 30-day cancellation period, he said, the automated service disconnected his call. Incredulous, Skudin tried twice more — and said he was disconnected both times.

“They have wonderful ways of not letting you get through to cancel their service,” Skudin said. “They’re very quick to say, ‘We’ll give you a contract and you have 30 days to change your mind,’ but they make it so aggravating \[to cancel\], some of these people will just say, ‘I’ll keep it. It’s not worth the effort.’”

Sprint spokesman Richard Pesce said, “We are continually working to improve customer service, so that we can quickly and effectively answer their questions, resolve issues and increase the value customers receive.”

Some Web sites have come to the rescue of frustrated consumers. One new service is 321calllog.com, which records conversations with customer-service representatives.

Carol Kelty, 56, an administrative assistant at Chimes Real Estate in Flushing, said she’d appreciate such a service. After she canceled DirecTV within the 30-day cancellation period, the company said she hadn’t done so, she said.

But Kelty had saved a copy of her e-mail request. When she faxed a printout of it, the company agreed to refund about $100 in fees, she said.

“I think it would probably be very useful for people who are in a jam,” she said of 321calllog.com. “If you don’t have proof that you canceled it or tried to cancel it, it’s your word against theirs.”

Another site, gethuman.com, indicates how callers can reach live representatives: by listing the digits to enter on a touch-tone phone, or the phrases the customer can say.

Some companies don’t make it easy. To reach a live representative at Humana’s pharmacy, gethuman.com instructs callers to provide an identification number that turns out to be invalid.

To get an agent at Northwest Airlines WorldPerks, callers must say “WorldPerks,” “agent,” “yes,” “agent” and another “yes,” according to gethuman.com. Some voice-response systems might not grant a request for an “operator” because the computer expects the caller to say “agent,” but customers might not know that’s the word they must use, said Elizabeth Herrell, an analyst at Forrester Research.

“I know one tricky company that, in order to get to an operator, you have to know to say ‘representative’ three times in a row,” she said. “Companies want to force you to use the automated service, but if the automated service cannot accommodate your specific needs, you should get an avenue out of there.”

Measuredup.com is a leading site where consumers rate and review the customer service they experience from any business, large or small, anywhere, at anytime. The site is fun, free and easy to use and read by thousands every day.

To read reviews you can either browse by Category Links or use the Measuredup Search Box found on every page of the site. You can also click the “Read Reviews” box or the “Recent Reviews” link.

To write a review click the “Write a Review” box and follow the instructions. It takes about 2 minutes to write a review. Writing a review is quick and easy. You can be anonymous and post a picture. The data we ask for in this area is so we can index your review for other interested people to find. If you are really paranoid about your identity you can put a fake name and email in the boxes. Submitted and approved reviews are available on Measuredup and may also be picked up by search engines or blogs.

Companies that care about and value Customer Service love MeasuredUp. Companies that treat the customer like dirt or place little value on customer service probably hate us. We are here to be a resource to consumers so they have a platform to complain or to praise.

Companies that advertise or sponsor categories on MeasuredUp, or take the MeasuredUp Pledge, show that they care about Customer Service. They may not always be perfect, but by advertising on MeasuredUp they are making the statement that they are trying to listen to customers and improve customer service. Occasionally a review that is not so great might be written about a company that is pretty great. We encourage people to be fair when writing a review and remember that anyone can have a bad day or a misunderstanding.

We invite you to browse the site and post consumer feedback (good or bad) about your own personal experiences with customer service.