Unlock the secrets to asserting your consumer rights with the ever-vigilant Helen Dewdney, the acclaimed 'Complaining Cow' who's made a career out of championing customer issues.
In an eye-opening conversation, we navigate the rough seas of customer service, with Helen providing a compass for those lost in chatbot loops. She artfully exposes the tactics some companies employ to evade accountability and underscores the undeniable linkage between top-notch customer service and business prosperity.
Her rallying cry is clear: don't just recognise your rights—demand that they're respected.
Amid the digital whirlwind of modern commerce, our discussion takes a turn to dissect the new complexities consumers face, from the cold algorithmic responses of chatbots to the crucial human connection often missing in online customer interactions.
When CEOs like Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy roll up their sleeves to tackle complaints head-on, it's a beacon of hope for the customer experience.
Helen's wisdom doesn't stop there; she leaves listeners equipped with practical strategies for effective advocacy in their consumer battles, transforming frustrations into victories in the marketplace.
Unlock the secrets to asserting your consumer rights with the ever-vigilant Helen Dewdney, the acclaimed 'Complaining Cow' who's made a career out of championing customer issues.
In an eye-opening conversation, we navigate the rough seas of customer service, with Helen providing a compass for those lost in chatbot loops. She artfully exposes the tactics some companies employ to evade accountability and underscores the undeniable linkage between top-notch customer service and business prosperity.
Her rallying cry is clear: don't just recognise your rights—demand that they're respected.
Amid the digital whirlwind of modern commerce, our discussion takes a turn to dissect the new complexities consumers face, from the cold algorithmic responses of chatbots to the crucial human connection often missing in online customer interactions.
When CEOs like Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy roll up their sleeves to tackle complaints head-on, it's a beacon of hope for the customer experience.
Helen's wisdom doesn't stop there; she leaves listeners equipped with practical strategies for effective advocacy in their consumer battles, transforming frustrations into victories in the marketplace.
Welcome to CX Diaries. Cx Diaries from the Customer Experience Foundation is our podcast where we talk to the people at the sharp end of customer service. This week we turn things on its head a little bit and we talk to Helen Juney, who's better known as the complaining cow. She is a trusted consumer champion, journalist, blogger, best-selling author, presenter, speaker and consultant and talks all things customer service. As a consumer champion, she hears on a regular basis what frustrates customers and the improvements they would like to see. She works with businesses to increase sales through improving customer service with customer insights and perspectives, and shows how to do this with compassion, care and integrity. Helen regularly appears in the media talking about complaining and customer service. She is regular on Alexis and Friends and frequently seen and heard on BBC Breakfast, the One Show Morning Live, bbc Radio 2, 4 and 5 and all the national newspapers and many magazines giving advice and opinion on many consumer issues.
Speaker 1:Helen, welcome Pleasure to have you with us today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. So, helen, to start off, give us your take on what consumer rights are, what they should be and why they're actually important in today's world.
Speaker 2:Well, consumer rights where do you start? I mean, they're there to protect consumers against anything that goes wrong. So I help consumers assert those rights, because not all companies are very good at adhering to those consumer rights and it is obviously important because otherwise people are going to be out of pocket. You know, if you buy a kitchen or you buy your washing machine and only last two months, you know you want the business to be able to deal with that appropriately Because obviously things go wrong. You know we expect things to go wrong. They do happen, but it's you know, it's like any mistake. It's not the actual mistake or the thing that's going wrong, it's how you deal with it that matters.
Speaker 1:What do you see as the most pressing consumer rights issues in commerce today?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a difficult one. I think it comes down to which sector you're in. We're certainly seeing that energy is always a really bad sector and telecoms is really bad. They're both really really poor for customer service. They're always at the bottom or the top of any complaints table. Whichever way you look at it, it's always on the which tables of whether poor and bad. And then there are certain stores that are unknown for not giving people their rights. You know that people think they have to buy an extended warranty when their consumer rights are worth more than a warranty. That's such a common um that annoys me hugely. Um, because people get get commissioned from those warranties. It's not looking after the customer at all. Um. So there are those. There are a lot.
Speaker 1:There could be a long long list there yeah, um, do we complain too much or do we expect too much?
Speaker 2:um, I don't think so. I think in the uk we don't, because what happens? What? What I see is that consumers don't know their consumer rights. They, they really don't. Um, and I'm forever telling people this you know the the same messages. You hear the consumer champions saying the same messages all the time. Like you know, the consumer rights act 2015. People just don't know it. People still talk about the sale of goods act, which was repealed in 2015. Talk about total description. You know all these, all these kind of kind of in the distant selling regulations repealed 10 years ago. Um, so people get confused. I don't think they do complain enough and when they do complain, if they get fogged off, they give up. So actually what we see is people give up a lot or they don't know their consumer rights and so don't complain. So here it's very much in the UK it's very much that not enough people complain because they don't know their consumer rights. They just don't know how to complain effectively.
Speaker 1:Do organisations, in your view, take advantage of that?
Speaker 2:I would say certain, certain companies do, without naming names. Um, the certain I've just recently done, you know, a couple of tick tocks about um warranties and um taking it back to the manufacturer when actually your contract is with the retailer and the same name for the same company comes up over and over again. Um, so there are certain companies that are really poor. What's interesting is seeing that some companies that were very well known for their really good customer service are now getting a poorer name and they are fubbing customers off, and it's quite interesting to see that because you're actually also seeing their sales go down and they're not making that correlation. Actually, if you improved their customer customer service, perhaps people would return to you, because now it's very so much more about price.
Speaker 2:Um, and if, if all everyone's a much of a muchness, what are you going to beat them on? You've got to beat them on customer service because even if things go wrong, you know that if you buy something else from them, that they will deal with it really well. Now, if you, if you're a company, and you don't deal with that complaint very well, the next time that that person wants to buy something, they're going to go and buy it from somewhere else because they know that you're not going to deal with it very well. So you know it's very much in the business interest to improve their customer service.
Speaker 1:It's a discussion that we have in customer experience professional circles an awful lot that some organizations get it, some chief executives get it and others just see complaints and poor service as a cost of doing business.
Speaker 2:What's your response to that. I think it's interesting because I've seen, you know, when you work with CEOs, as I've done in some companies, when the CEOs take ownership and they start a company, like many years ago when Dave Lewis went to Tesco as the CEO how many years ago that was? Was that nine, eight, nine years ago? He actually spent the first two weeks looking at complaints. He wanted to see what was going on in the company, what was going wrong. He met with me because he could see I'd taken Tesco to court and won and I'd blogged about them a lot, and so he he went out of his way to meet me. He had me, uh, back in in the offices and you know, looking around and discussing with his executive team a lot of issues. So he spent those first two weeks looking at all those emails. Now, that's the biggest, biggest company in the UK and he took that time to look at the thousands of emails that they get a day and he didn't carry on doing that. If you email the CEO it goes to the executive team, but he really took an interest in that and look how he turned that company around so that, for for me, I saw him literally looking at customer service and the complaints they were getting and that's what they dealt with. And that was a huge part of turning the place around, bearing in mind he also. You know he joined just as though the financial issues were hitting the Mark Babcock employees, so he had a lot on his plate but he specifically took complaints as a big thing.
Speaker 2:And you take Greg Jackson of Octopus Now he looks at his complaints. He looks regularly at what's going on with complaints. He responds to complaints personally, regularly at what's going on with complaints. He responds to complaints personally and they that. And the octopus is the only energy company that is a which recommended supplier. So it just goes to show how important it is.
Speaker 2:It's got to be part and parcel of your whole process, not not a cost. I've got to deal with complaints. That's a loss. It's the cost if you don't deal with those complaints properly, because you know it used to be. If you don't deal with those complaints properly, because you know it used to be, if you had a bad experience, one person would tell 10. Well, obviously, with social media now that's that's so much more. And with more competition, you know that's that's much more. You want people to be able to review you and refer people to you, and that's only going to happen when you improve your customer service, and that's part and parcel of what you do when you improve your customer service, and it's part and parcel of what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fascinating. We touched it briefly earlier on. Are there any sectors or even types of company that are particularly worse than others?
Speaker 2:Well, it is the energy and the broadband. Because I quite often get asked you know, do I change my broadband? Do I change, you know, this company? And the thing is, I actually think that they've got the ethos that for everyone that leaves a company, someone's joining them. Because people are constantly leaving people because of their customer service.
Speaker 2:And until one of those companies says, do you know what? We're going to take a hit for the next two years. We're going to invest heavily in customer services instead of cutting um, and invest heavily and actually get our service right up there, because when they improve their services they're two years ahead of all the other companies. People will flock to them and they will pay the extra couple of quid a month. They will if it takes that, but it probably won't, because in 10 years time they'll have so many more customers they will be in more profit. But I don't think you know the, the directors don't see that. They see the short-termism of instant profits rather than actually what your profits could be in 10 years time if you improved your customer service. Because we've seen from lots of research that people will pay more for better customer service. But it's just not even being offered in that way either.
Speaker 1:How has the digital transformation of commerce impacted consumer protections in the online world? Sorry, can you repeat that? It flickered out? How has the move to digital transformation of commerce and the online world affecting consumer protections? Is that making it more difficult, more prevalent?
Speaker 2:I think people lose the chatbots, all that kind of digital stuff. It's just they really do um. I mean, people who design chatbots and companies who use chatbots will tell you otherwise, but it's just not true. You see, all the research that's not done by chatbot companies or companies that use them and people just say I want to speak to human. Chatbots are great for answering simple questions, but actually when you've got a specific question and they want a specific answer to an issue, they want to be able to speak to a person. So although it can make it more efficient and effective for the company, it can make it more frustrating for the customer because they're taking longer, especially if they've then got to speak to a person at the end. And I think we're sort of seeing when decisions are made by AI without a human involved. There's no consumer law really covering that at the moment. There's the GDPRs, but they will say there's a human in there somewhere. So at the moment it's really quite woolly around that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Just having that discussion um with somebody in compliance the other day, it's actually quite complicated right and are there any upcoming legislative changes around that that we should all be aware of consumers and businesses, or is it still?
Speaker 2:a bit of a while I think it's still a bit as soon as a bit the wild west out there really, but, um, at the moment you know they're talking about it. You know there's the online safety bill, which sort of you might touch on some things, um, but not necessarily consumer law, but it might be that you know that the platforms are that I might be putting stuff out there. That's false information that you know doesn't help people. Um, there will be um, some more more laws coming through about um, about the media, um and other streaming services, but not specifically at the moment it is. It is quite woolly. You've got the gdprs to cover your digital, but that's, that's it at the moment and I think, as things move so quickly, uh, the the legislative side of things hasn't moved as quickly as technology has.
Speaker 1:And does this also apply internationally and to international businesses selling into the UK? Because obviously digitisation has brought down physical barriers and borders, but again, the law hasn't necessarily kept up across the world. So what's your take on that and how all this impacts internationally?
Speaker 2:Well, what's interesting now is that we're seeing lots and lots of sites from china and the us and saying that they're based in the uk, when they're not. Um, and so the trouble there is consumers are buying things which they think they're buying from the uk and they're not, and so they're not protected by our consumer laws. So you know, you haven't got anything, there's nothing china, and you actually got slightly more in the eu, but you haven't got the, the consumer rights act. So you know, if you're going to have to return things, it's going to cost you a fortune to return it to china. If they let you return it, if they're going to refund you, and so the the increase in all of these international businesses is giving people more choice.
Speaker 2:But because people aren't aware of their consumer rights anyway, it becomes even worse when they're buying from outside of the UK, particularly when so many of those sites make it look like they're in the UK, whereas actually you find out for the UK by having to do some digging, like looking through the terms and conditions. Do they mention consumer law? Do they have a returns address? Where is that returns address? So it is. It is difficult unless you know exactly what you're doing and you've got some really decent returns information on there, so it's a tricky one.
Speaker 1:Really interesting Consumer advocacy groups. So people like yourself and other groups. What role do you get to play in maybe shaping government policy, business policy, protecting consumers? How can organisations use people like you proactively?
Speaker 2:Well, it's an interesting one. I've had meetings with the FCA Financial Conduct Authority talking about consumer duty. The FCA, you know, financial Conduct Authority doing about consumer duty. We're looking to hopefully do some workshops in the future, work with banks doing sort of workshops. But also, you know, government departments will contact consumer champions and ask you know, what are you hearing, what's going on, what's your advice on things? So I've done a lot of work in alternative dispute resolution areas. I've got a lot of information about that I talk about and so it can vary, but it does need the. It does need those organizations to be a little bit more proactive and not insular and actually going out and doing proper consultations and not just doing the tick box consultation but actually really doing a consultation and actually finding out what's going on there to feed into information. I'd say they're not doing, the government department's not necessarily doing as much as they could or should.
Speaker 1:Talking about corporate responsibility now, businesses exist to make a profit. That's the theory of the firm, but for many, profit is a dirty word. So what's your take on how businesses can balance profit making with ethical practices and respect for consumer rights?
Speaker 2:It's an interesting one. Well, I mean straight off, they should be abiding by consumer rights, because it's the law. But when it comes to ethics and morally doing the right thing, I think in the end, actually that's what will push the profits up, because we are seeing consumers wanting to do more. They're wanting to shop more ethically and sometimes it's very difficult At the moment it's more expensive to do that. It's always more expensive to go and buy an ethically made jumper than it is to go and buy, you know, fast fashion. And if we can bring those prices down, that will help because people will shop more.
Speaker 2:You know, reinvest that into the local community. You know, put it into the pots, not necessarily oh, here's our big charity done. We've just ticked the box to send £4 million to a national charity. Why not be a little bit more creative and actually give those sums to your local regions, your local areas, and actually say work with the community? So when the community is actually working with that local store, say the local supermarket, and you're actually working with the community, you're doing different things. You're not doing a tick box, but you're doing what that community needs and what this community needs, and it can be very different, but working and building those partnerships, those relationships will build your ethical business as well as increasing your sales, because people will be understanding what your business is about, what it's doing, and then it's the right thing, and so the sales will follow.
Speaker 1:Are there any examples of companies or sectors that are doing particularly well in upholding consumer rights while still behaving ethically? Who's doing this well?
Speaker 2:I think it's. I think it's difficult because for every time I would say, oh, this company has to deal with a complaint. Really well, I'll have a consumer who will tell me that they've had a really bad experience. So it's because quite often it's, you know, we get to hear about the bigger companies and so the bigger companies have lots of stores or lots of services, or you, you know lots of outlets, and so then it can be down to the manager. So then it's about, you know, training and what's going on. So for when it comes down to consumer rights, that can very much depend on how good their training is and the actual individual at the end of the store, because you know, no one company is going to have 100% great staff. You know it's just not feasible. So at some point there will be issues. I mean we are seeing, you know, some companies being more ethical.
Speaker 2:You know the supermarkets are just moving to use Oleo and making sure that their food isn't going to waste. Tesco have a partnership with Oleo where they put things into Oleo and they actually have volunteers come and get the stuff and actually make sure isn't going to waste. Tesco have a partnership with Odeo where they put things into Odeo and they actually have volunteers come and get the stuff and actually make sure it goes out to people. So we are seeing slightly more in the food waste stuff. It's moving slowly but it's getting there and hopefully when one supermarket does it, the next will follow, you know. So there is a movement towards doing something with food waste Not enough, you know. The government backtracked on reporting on food waste, which was very much what some of the supermarkets wanted a few years ago, but then still not having to do that, and then I think we would see some more transparency about what's going on there. But we're not seeing it at the moment.
Speaker 1:Right Interesting. Looking to the future, give us your predictions. What future trends do you think are going to impact consumer rights the most, and how do we, as businesses and consumers, prepare for these changes?
Speaker 2:Gosh, that's a difficult one. I think we sort of touched on it earlier the digital sides of things, that's what's going to impact people the most, and so, because it's just a little bit woolly there about who's making the decisions and getting through to people, um, and who does what, and cut and cuts in customer service, which is the wrong place to to be cutting. I think that's what consumers are are wary about, but at the moment they can't do a lot about it, because if a company's putting in too much of chatbots and not enough people, then what can a consumer do? Well, the consumer can walk away, and that's what companies need to be thinking about and they will do.
Speaker 2:I do hear from people say I'll never shop at Sunso again because I've just spent an hour on the phone. So there may be a move for companies to actually realise it, to actually get it and see that actually the consumers don't want all this digital. Yes, they want to be speedier. Yes, they want it to be more effective, but at the moment it's not there. So I would like to see a trend of it improving, but at the moment moment it's not. So it's difficult to say whether customer service online will get better, because at the moment it certainly isn't. So it's because I'd like to see it, but whether it will, I don't know.
Speaker 1:OK, and what advice? What's your starting advice that you give to someone who believes their consumer rights have been violated? What? Where do you start? Assuming you've gone through the chat, you've run the call center, you've gone in branch and you've got nowhere. What? What next? What's your advice? What do you do?
Speaker 2:well, my first, my first bit of advice is never do any of that and waste your time. Anyway, it's always do it in writing, because if you complain in writing, you've got your evidence. So if you need to go to an ombudsman or if you need to go, you know you want to use that in a forum or you want to go to a small claims court, you've got that evidence. Whereas if you phone, you haven't got that. If you phone, uh, people say, oh, you can record it, it's, that may not be admissible in court. That'll be down to the judge. And they say, well, can record it, that may not be admissible in court. That would be down to the judge. They say, well, they record it. Well, they do, but it's for their training purposes. That's very different to being able to say you can use it in court, but when you're writing, you've got it all and you're not going to get pushed from Politipost, you're not going to get cut off, you've got all that.
Speaker 2:And so then what we also see is that some companies will not put an email address on there. The cynic in me will say that's because they don't want you to keep it, they don't want you to have anything in writing, because there it is on the chat box and that goes, so you can send it to yourself. That never happens, but there is a great website, ceo email dot com, which will give you the CEO email addresses for every company. The CEO email address is for every company, so I always advise people to use that. If there's no address or you're not getting anywhere with customers, just go there. I mean, as I touched on earlier, the CEO won't respond personally, although some do.
Speaker 2:It does get escalated, so it does get into the system. It does get all that there and, to be polite, be objective, quote the law. Say what you'll do if you don't get what you want, which you know might be going, you know, going to court or whatever, saying you know what it is, is it, is it a repair? Is it, um, a full refund. But under the consumer rights, that is a full refund after 30 days from purchase and after that time, repair, replacement, knowing those kinds of things, knowing that if the item's faulty doesn't match the description, didn't last a reasonable length of time, not satisfactory quality, using those things to show that you know the law. And then that tends to focus businesses. They go oh no, we're not going to do that, we'll send it back to the manufacturer. You start saying my contract's with you and that's when it goes and gives them a deadline and that focuses them as well and they're usually the top tips to to get people going and to get the address that they are legally entitled to.
Speaker 1:Right. And how did you get involved in all this to start with? How did you become this complaining expert?
Speaker 2:Well, my mum would say, from birth, I think, think, and I think she probably does say that um, but I think when I was a, when I was a child, you know, just coming up into secondary school I think I'd complained to Jackie magazine back in the day and I'd got a letter. Um, I'd got a letter published and they didn't pay me, which annoyed me intently. I think back in the day it was a pound, I think it was about a pound, and I wrote to complain and I got it. But what really annoyed me is that I thought I didn't get the stamp, I didn't get everything that I was, because obviously they're back there and it was a lot of emails I should have been paid for the stamp, and also I didn't get an apology and that, and also I didn't get an apology. And those, those that's when I talk about. What is it that you want? Quite often some people just want an apology or to know they're going to put training in place, and so that annoyed me.
Speaker 2:And then I complained about something in a um, you know, and I started a school magazine and in the second issue I'd put something about uh, the girls were playing the boys sports, but the boys weren't playing the girls. I mean, obviously that would be whole. It would be a whole different kind of argument now about equality. But back then I put, um, what with the sex discrimination I'd have to say about this? It should be, all you know, all equal now. But then it was still so different and I got censored, I got shut down, and so that was my first example, or my first experience, of being censored for being right and fighting for things, and I did get things changed. So what? The key thing for me there was I got something changed because I was right. I was right to question what I did, but I got censored because people don't like it, and so that's what I found for the rest of my life. You can fight, but people don't always like it, um, and so that's what I found for the rest of my life. You can fight, but people don't always like it.
Speaker 2:Um, and so from that and then I worked in children's services. I fought for children's rights, um, and then, when I had my baby back in 2008, and then started the blog as a hobby, and then it all came from. It all came from that because it it sort of hit a gap in the market wrote the book because I asked which to write to rewrite their book and they said no. So I said, all right, okay, you want something doing, do it yourself. So I wrote the book and then started to get approached by businesses and now I work with businesses as well. So because they want to know exactly what it is that consumers want and what it is that's frustrating them. So I do quite a broad church now.
Speaker 1:And looking back on your career. Finally, what would you say is your greatest achievement in this era? What are you most proud of?
Speaker 2:Gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:No one's ever asked me that I'm quite proud of the book because I know that's helped a lot of people and it's and it's been a bestseller and continues to be a bestseller nine years on. I'm regularly updating, just due for another one, um, so I am quite, I'm quite chuffed with that, quite chuffed. The second one that also remains um a bestseller and it's outsold. Both of them have sold outsold other consumer books. So I'm quite proud about that um, and getting the reviews that I do and you know, from people like gonna if I name drop people like Rob Rinder, that was always a special moment. When you know he said he wrote me a great uh review on the book, um, so it's hard to tell because, because I get money back for people all the time, no, none, no one really sinks in because it's it's so many.
Speaker 2:I think that the achievement for me is being able to sustain that and to continue to do that um, and and I think obviously I'm obviously taking Tesco to court and winning. That was a. That's a big moment 40 quid. I went for 40 quid um, so because they annoyed me and it was right for me to do so and I won and I got the 50 quid goodwill gesture 12 years ago. So that was, you know, a good third time I'd been to court and won, but first time with them. So that was a biggie to take on the you know, to take on a big company like that. So I think those things probably stand out the most in the career. I'll finish here and I'll think yeah and that and that, but that's what I think of straight away.
Speaker 1:That's great um helen. I've been wonderful having you with us today. Thank you for taking us through this really, really important subject, not something we've covered before. Hope our listeners have found this insightful. You can find out lots more about the Customer Experience Foundation at CXFO and check out the Complaining Cow. We thank you for joining us on CX Diaries and hope you can join us next time.