A Reporter Calls About a Customer Complaint

The call at eleven

The phone rings at eleven on a weekday. It is a consumer reporter from a local station or paper, following up a complaint a customer sent them.

The reporter wants the business's side, and the story is running tonight or tomorrow. The deadline for comment is four o'clock.

Whoever answers the phone is usually not the person who should speak, and often has not heard of the complaint.

What the business says in the next five hours, or does not say, will sit in that story for as long as it stays online, which is usually years.

Why the reporter is calling you

Consumer reporters receive more complaints than they can cover. They pick ones with a clear grievance, an ordinary customer and, often, a business that seems not to have listened.

Calling the business is part of reporting fairly. The story will carry the customer's account either way; the call is your chance to have yours in it too.

Most reporters are not looking for a villain. A business that answers promptly and explains what it is doing about the problem often turns a complaint story into a resolution story.

What ends up in the story

• A refusal, which reads as having something to hide.
• Silence, reported as not responding by deadline.
• A remark at the counter from whoever happened to pick up.
• Blame aimed at the customer, which readers take against.
• Policy wording quoted back without any explanation.
• The fix, if somebody says clearly what it is.

The third is the one nobody plans for. A rushed line from a staff member who wanted to be helpful, or wanted the call over, can be quoted as the company's response.

Decide who speaks

One person speaks for the business, usually the owner or the manager, and everybody else knows it before the phone ever rings.

Everyone who answers the phone needs a short script: take the reporter's name, outlet, number, deadline and question, say the right person will call back before the deadline, and say nothing else.

That is not stonewalling. It is the difference between a considered answer and an improvised one, and reporters are used to it, provided the call back actually comes.

Check the facts before calling back

Ask the reporter what the customer says happened. Most will outline it, and it tells you which records to pull.

Then gather them: the work order or invoice, emails and texts, notes of phone calls, any photographs, and the staff who dealt with the customer. Find out what was already offered and what the customer actually wants.

Sometimes the records show the business got it wrong. Better to find that out at one o'clock than to hear it from the reporter at five.

Calling back

Call before the deadline, not at it. Assume every word may be quoted, including the friendly chat at the start.

Keep it short and factual: that you understand why the customer is upset, what your records show, and what you are offering to do. If you do not know something yet, say when you will.

Do not argue about the customer's character or reveal personal details about them, even if the complaint feels unfair. Readers side with the person, and the business looks worse for it.

A short written statement by email is acceptable if speaking feels risky. It should still answer the question asked.

A worked example

A heat pump installer with three crews puts ductless heat pumps into older houses in place of baseboard heaters and oil furnaces, and sells a maintenance plan billed monthly.

A homeowner complained that she was billed three more months for a plan she had cancelled, and that the crew cracked her stucco running the lines outside. Told the contract was clear, she wrote to a television consumer reporter.

The reporter called at eleven, wanting comment by four. The employee who answered said the manager was out and the company had nothing to say, which the reporter noted.

The owner called back at one, having pulled the file: the maintenance agreement, the homeowner's emails, and the photographs each crew takes of the walls before and after every installation.

The emails showed she had cancelled the plan three months earlier, in a message sent to an inbox nobody checked. The crew's photographs showed the crack already in the stucco before any drilling began.

The owner told the reporter both things plainly, refunded the extra payments that afternoon, and offered to go through the photographs with the homeowner.

The story that aired carried the refund, explained in the owner's own words, alongside the earlier line about having nothing to say.

Two things changed afterwards. Cancellations now go to a shared inbox checked every morning, and any complaint the office cannot settle reaches the owner the same day.

Put the resolution on record

A complaint story often runs before the problem is settled. When it is settled, tell the reporter, in writing, with the facts and the date.

Many outlets will add an update line to the online version, or mention it in a follow-up. The update is what a reader finds years later when they search your name.

If the customer also posted a review, reply to it once with the same facts and the same calm tone. Readers who find both will see a business that dealt with it.

The counter-case

Some complaints are unfounded, and some customers will not accept any resolution. Even then, a brief factual statement does better than silence, and nobody is obliged to argue the case in the press.

If the complaint involves injury, a large claim or a possible lawsuit, speak to your lawyer or insurer before speaking to the reporter, and tell the reporter that is what you are doing.

For the ordinary complaint, the approach stands: one spokesperson, the facts checked, a prompt and calm answer, and the resolution on record.

If the phone rings today

1. Name the person who speaks for the business.
2. Give staff a script for taking the details.
3. Ask the reporter for the question and deadline.
4. Pull every record before calling back.
5. Call back early with facts and an offer.
6. Send the resolution to the reporter in writing.
7. Route unresolved complaints to the owner the same day.

Step four is the one that decides how the call goes. An answer built from the contract, the emails and the photographs is calm because it is certain, and certainty is what reads well in a story.

Owning one complaint plainly, without arguing, is also the approach in kind words under a low rating.

Frequently asked questions

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