In the first edition of our column, dedicated to helping Zimbabwean consumers make better decisions and find solutions to their issues, I talked about how to write a better complaint letter.

The basic rundown was to make sure we have our facts straight, keeping our letter short, detailed and, above all, courteous. Unfortunately, however wonderfully you craft a complaint and try to remain courteous and friendly, it does not always work.

If a letter is not ignored (which happens more often than it should), a response sometimes takes more than two days to receive, and could contain anything from generic marketing boilerplate to detailed, personalised solutions.

So if you have written your beautiful, concise and polite complaint letter, and receive no satisfaction, it is time to escalate. In my experience, there is one unfailing tactic to make sure any issue is dealt with by people who actually count.

It is a classic tactic for rattling the corporate monkey tree to make sure your complaint gets shoved under the nose of someone with decision-making powers.

Let us call it the Executive Email Carpet Bomb (or EECB for short), and here is how to deploy it to maximum effect.

1. Exhaust normal channels – Have you called customer service? Asked for a supervisor? Hung up and tried again? Give regular customer service a chance to fix the problem before you go nuclear. It is sometimes frustrating trying to deal with the (equally frustrated) young agent on the other end of the line, but sometimes all it requires is a bit of patience.
2. Write a really good complaint letter – we can’t say this enough, because it is the basis for any resolution. Be clear, concise, polite and professional. State exactly what you want. Pitch your issue in a way that affects their bottom line. Spell check and include contact information.
3. Determine the corporate email address format – Look through their website or Google their company name for press releases. Examine the PR or marketing manager’s email address. What’s the format? Is it [email protected]? or [email protected]? Figure it out and write it down.
4. Compile a list of the company’s top executives – Remember, we are trying to get our issue in front of the decision-makers. This is often available on the company website, under sections like ‘corporate officers’ or ‘management’ or something similarly boring and officious. You can also look the company up on the websites of financial newspapers, which often mention the names of corporate officers when reporting on company AGMs or results.
5. Combine the names from step 4 with the format from step 3 to create an email list.
6. Send your complaint to the list from step 5.
7. Sit back and wait.

I have personally launched EECBs to great effect. In every instance that I’ve put together a carefully curated list of email addresses and sent it out, I’ve received some sort of immediate reply and eventual resolution.

I have used this tactic to resolve issues with organisations as diverse as a bank, Zimbabwe’s revenue authority, and a particularly belligerent insurance giant.

If the top echelon of the organization you’re dealing with are jacked in enough to care about their clients, chances are you will receive a response and have your issues resolved.

Try it out, and best of luck!

Joe Ruzvidzo is the founder of Zimbabwe’s customer experience blog: www.consumerizim.com. Email [email protected] or WhatsApp 0772 881 704 to share your experience today.