Reiterating the benefits of contacting customer service: Make it a habit!

I've written before about how to tell companies that when you're both satisfied and dissatisfied about their services or products. I generally practice what I preach, but I have to admit that sometimes I simply forget or get lazy.

For instance, I have a broken night light sitting on my desk. It's been there for months. I intended to email the manufacturer to complain about how it was broken when it came out of the package. But I got lazy and now it's too late (since I appear to have tossed the packaging that I thought I'd saved).

As I get tangible results from contacting companies, I realize the benefits of making it a habit. And it really does pay off – literally. Earlier this week, I found a tiny dead bug in a Target brand package. I immediately used the online contact form to contact Target and by that evening, I'd received a response saying that my message had been forwarded to their monitoring staff and that they were sending me a $3 check to reimburse me for the product. I would have been even more impressed if they were also reimbursing me the 28 cents that I paid in tax, but in this instance, I didn't even ask for compensation. (It was a non-food product and I'd used almost all of it before I found the bug.)

On my post about complimenting companies and asking for coupons, Mama Bird left a comment noting that she's had success emailing companies who make products that rarely go on sale. I think that's a great strategy and plan to implement it myself.

So, to sum up, the lesson of the day is make it a habit to contact customer service with all good and bad experiences!

Previously: How to write an effective complaint letter & How to write a complimentary letter and get free coupons