Best way to get a reply from a company?

[Tail End Charlie]

I have a quandary. Recently I ordered something from a large retailer. They have sent it to their preferred courier. For the last two weeks it has been sitting with the courier, with no communication to me from them. It should have been delivered 10 days ago.
I have tried contacting the courier with no joy and have also contacted the retailer to contact them on my behalf, but it would appear they are being ignored too.
I'd rather have the item than a refund.
I have heard twitter is a good way of "shaming" a company into acting. I don't really know what twitter is and how it works but would it be worth my signing up just for this purpose?
(I haven't named the retailer and courier as it's not really relevant to my question).

 

[vickster]

How have you tried to contact?
If only email, can you phone or live chat?

 

[PeteXXX]

I had problems with Vodafone last February. I eventually emailed Ahmed Essen, the CEO directly and got referred to the 'proper' complaints people, not their first line of defence team.
Might be worth a try if you can find who the real boss is.

 

[mistyoptic]

Most of the courier companies have an App these days. Can you contact them via that?

 

[MontyVeda]

It takes a moment to sign up to Twitter so why dither?
I signed up a few weeks ago to try to get some compensation from my internet provider for not having a phone line for two days.

 

[ianrauk]

Give Twitter a go. It's a great public domain resource Most companies are pretty quick in a reply as they don't like people seeing them not answer.

 

[Hicky]

Social media if you've exhausted all other means, I had a reply within half and hour once I'd put negative comments on a fb page after using answer machine/email and company contact page x3.

 

[T4tomo]

I have a quandary. Recently I ordered something from a large retailer. They have sent it to their preferred courier. For the last two weeks it has been sitting with the courier, with no communication to me from them. It should have been delivered 10 days ago.
I have tried contacting the courier with no joy and have also contacted the retailer to contact them on my behalf, but it would appear they are being ignored too.
I'd rather have the item than a refund.
I have heard twitter is a good way of "shaming" a company into acting. I don't really know what twitter is and how it works but would it be worth my signing up just for this purpose?
(I haven't named the retailer and courier as it's not really relevant to my question).

the responsibility is still with the retailer, keep berating them, ultimately they can invoke their compensation clause in the contract or threaten to dump the courier from the account, so they have more clout.

I had similar, and eventually got my case of wine that had come from Italy via a hospital for a couple of weeks, where it had been accidently delivered with some cleaning supplies by the courier! Eventually the driver recalled what must have happened after being probed by HQ and went back and recovered it.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Thanks for the replies, I have tried live chat (which isn't because it only asks you to leave a message), email - ignored, phone directs you to a number which charges 7p per minute and after 10 minutes of waiting I gave up. I was surprised when the retailer appears to have been ignored too, I thought they'd have more clout.

So, twitter it is then, wish me luck on this one! I'll be the epicentre of a twitter storm!

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Damn, just tried signing up and keep getting an error message. Think I've broken twitter!

 

[CanucksTraveller]

I had problems with Vodafone last February. I eventually emailed Ahmed Essen, the CEO directly and got referred to the 'proper' complaints people, not their first line of defence team.
Might be worth a try if you can find who the real boss is.

I'd recommend this. I used to work for TUI and any complaints emailed direct to the CEO and similar board level members got filtered through to a "Director's Complaint Team" who were relatively well resourced and worked from the HQ proper.
Standard complaints went to the "first line of defence" which I think was a small outsourced call centre in India. They didnt really understand the business and all they had at their disposal in the way of resolution was a small discount off the next booking.

Go to the people at the top.

Damn, just tried signing up and keep getting an error message. Think I've broken twitter!

Twitter is overloaded today which is unusual, but be assured it's not just you. I'd try later on.

 

[MontyVeda]

Thanks for the replies, I have tried live chat (which isn't because it only asks you to leave a message), email - ignored, phone directs you to a number which charges 7p per minute and after 10 minutes of waiting I gave up. I was surprised when the retailer appears to have been ignored too, I thought they'd have more clout.

So, twitter it is then, wish me luck on this one! I'll be the epicentre of a twitter storm!

This was my gripe with the phone provider... they offered me something like £2.50 compensation which i wasn't happy with since it cost me £2.20 to report the fault on my PAYG mobile, plus the inconvenience of no internet, no streaming services and not even wi-fi... i felt the i was due more than £1.25 per day (or 15p after covering the cost of calling them). Got nowhere on the phone and spent a further £3.30... went on Twitter and whilst they were reluctant to budge, I eventually got the cost of reporting the fault and reporting the fix refunded.

 

[Petrichorwheels]

oh for the days when you could just turn up in the shop and make a loud loud complaint and get a solution.

 

[stephec]

This was my gripe with the phone provider... they offered me something like £2.50 compensation which i wasn't happy with since it cost me £2.20 to report the fault on my PAYG mobile, plus the inconvenience of no internet, no streaming services and not even wi-fi... i felt the i was due more than £1.25 per day (or 15p after covering the cost of calling them). Got nowhere on the phone and spent a further £3.30... went on Twitter and whilst they were reluctant to budge, I eventually got the cost of reporting the fault and reporting the fix refunded.

When I first started with Virgin I was without a phone line for nearly three weeks, on my final call to them I told them that if I didn't have a working line within three days I'd consider them in breach of contract and cancel my direct debit.

Straight away they told me that standard Ofcom compensation was something like £8 a day and gave me that without me having to ask for anything, it meant that I got my first two months for free. 😊

 

[MontyVeda]

When I first started with Virgin I was without a phone line for nearly three weeks, on my final call to them I told them that if I didn't have a working line within three days I'd consider them in breach of contract and cancel my direct debit.

Straight away they told me that standard Ofcom compensation was something like £8 a day and gave me that without me having to ask for anything, it meant that I got my first two months for free. 😊

my mother got £11 a day a few weeks previously from Sky, but i think it has to be off for three days... mine was down for something like 46hours, hence getting next to SFA