A Basic Guide To Complaining

You don't 'encompass a complex complaint' on Twitter. You put down your basic complaint and Ask you Twitter followers to retweet. If it goes viral it gives the company in question a bad name. The idea is that they then address the problem. Sometimes, it's very effective.

But just making contact with a firm and saying there is a problem is often all that's needed.

Some problems take a while to change. You have to be ready for that. We noticed a change in school policy about teaching religion when we complained that it was biased in favour of the Abrahamic religions at DD's primary school. That's not the sort of thing that can be sorted with a quick fix.

'Encompass a complex complaint' sounds like jargonese

Sorry for my early morning lapse bags Hope it did not upset your breakfast. I meant "encapsulate a complex complaint". I can't think of a more plain-English way of saying that. "write your complaint in 100 ch" maybe?
I think doing that on Twitter is an awful idea bags - a last resort maybe if all else fails - but as a first resort, I expect your agree, childish.
Most companies will try to resolve a complaint. It is only the minority that do not. They should be given a chance to do so before trying to damage their reputation in public.

Yes, I do agree, but I've seen it work for others on Twitter when ordinary channels of complaint hadn't worked. The cases I've seen have been quite 'large'.

BTW, in each case it has restored the company's credentials because the public has seen that they have responded correctly when sufficiently challenged. Which is what you would expect.

Not sure I prefer encapsulate. But don't worry about my breakfast. It would take more than a bit of jargonese to spoil it

JessM I think you're missing the point about social media. If companies make Facebook and Twitter interaction available, then they are inviting customer interaction via those channels. They know what they're doing!

I think they are opening themselves up to all kinds of possibilities nannaAnna
I might be missing the point - i am thinking there is more than one way to complain via twitter
1. a kind of public complaint directed at the company - just like putting a complaint on FB
2. a campaign in which you want to make sure lots of other people sympathise with your complaint and the company becomes desperate to restore their reputation.

I don't think 1 is the best place to start with a complaint - speak to them first if you actually want a resolution.
2 I think would be a last resort but a very unreasonable first resort.
Is there anything I am missing?

Yes: effectiveness. As I've already explained, I've seen cases that were not resolved by "the usual routes" of phone calls and letters resolved after being 'publicised' on Twitter. It may not be a good way to start a complaint, but it seems to be an effective way to complete one when other things have failed.

You bet!