How will you mark National Complaints Day?

This Friday it’s National Complaints Day. A day set aside to celebrate complaints. Who would have thought it?

Up until a few years ago, complaining, if done at all, was a closed interaction between me and a company. I could write a letter, send an email or make a call to let a company know how they had let me down. But there was a disconnect.

Organisations for the most part were not set up to treat complaints as anything other than a commodity or product in itself. The interaction was functional, prescribed, scripted. Whilst my complaint might be acknowledged, the outcome was inevitably ticketed and soulless. Where I might express a whole range of emotions from anger to frustration, to annoyance, to disappointment, even the occasional surprise, organisations for the most part were not geared up to listen, to hear, to empathise.

But back to National Complaints Day this Friday. I’m not sure what verb to use to describe the day: am I celebrating complaints, commemorating them … do I mark the day by complaining at a predetermined time, do I stand silent for a moment and think of complaints-past that have never seen the light of day … do I send Tweets full of invective against any company with an overseas call centre, do I video myself conducting some ranting tirade against all broadband providers, banks and low-budget airlines, do I write a rambling blog targetting all companies which offer ill-thought through IVRs … or do I seek comfort and solace in the fact that I now live in a world where I can now do all these things?

I can complain in any number of different ways: video, audio, e-mail, letter, phone, blog, microblog amongst others. I can complain now, right now, at the moment when the cause of the complaint takes place, or I can complain later. The choice is mine. I can complain in private or in public. The choice is mine. I can complain on web sites that have nothing to do with the company I am complaining about, or I can complain directly to the company itself. The choice is mine. We live in an incredibly connected, voyeuristic and engaged time. How, when and where we complain is no longer in the hands of the companies which are the cause of the complaint: the choice is ours.

To help mark National Complaints Day, I am truly fortunate to be able to bring together a variety of people from different industries to discuss the impact of social media on complaints specifically and customer service generally. Ultimately, the discussion is about business change, and the fact that the way in which people and companies communicate and engage with each other is changing.

Perhaps companies are starting to get down off their camels, as the Cluetrain Manifesto demands.

Check out our Events for full details on our roundtable to mark National Complaints Day itself, and I will be publishing the findings from it this Friday 13th. Come back to this page to read the findings or listen to the audio of the roundtable.

You can also follow the roundtable on the 12th by using the hashtag #ncd2010

For more information please feel free to contact me by e-mail or call 0845 054 6545