Customer Reviews

How To Complain For Fun And Profit: The Best Guide Ever To Writing Complaint Letters.

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"How to Complain for Fun and Profit" is a smart, witty, delightfully entertaining read that keeps you wanting more! Once I picked it up, I could not put it down! Bruce Silverman is a master story-teller...only the stories he is recounting are all true - his own real life experiences dealing with issues we all face from time to time - lousy customer service!

Let's face it...it's getting worse every day! When was the last time you had a pleasurable experience with an airline? When was the last time a hotel had your reservation information and accommodations correct? When was the last time a major retail chain in any industry actually met or exceeded your expectations? What did you do about it?

If you are like most people, you were probably really frustrated and put-out but did little or nothing to seek compensation for your troubles. After you read this book, you will be inspired! You will know exactly what to do and how to do it. This book is a road map for how to complain and actually have someone listen!

We recently stayed at a major hotel chain in Seattle. We were miffed because they refused to put a cot in the room for our son to sleep on...something about it being a fire hazard and there was a couch he could use instead. No problem (afterall, I had just finished reading Bruce's book).

When we got home, I fired off my letter to their General Manager, following every piece of Bruce's instruction from the book...within 48 hours of sending the letter, I had received a $500 credit and apology from them. (it really wasn't even that big of an inconvenience...so $500 was really generous!)

This book will make a great gift to all your friends and families as well! Its fun, articulate, and educational all at the same time! I highly recommend!

Silverman, a former advertising colleague of mine whose many senior titles have included President of Wong-Doody, a West Coast ad agency; President of Asher-Gould, another West Coast ad agency; President of Western International Media and Creative Director at various Ogilvy & Mather offices and of Bozell South, evidently had a cute little sideline all these years - writing complaint letters.

While you and I might write a complaint letter because we're irate to the point of exploding, Silverman complains for what appear to be different reasons. His complaint letter are not only an art form but also a sport. He has saved his winning letters all these years, along with notes tracking his success in getting freebies. And he does keep score.


Silverman recently boasted to me, like the complaint champ he is,"Over the course of the past 20 years, I've written dozens and dozens and dozens (!!!) of complaint letters to airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, retailers, banks, credit card companies, car dealers, movie theater chains, theatrical producers... and a huge percentage of those letters resulted in me getting something back from them... and the "something" wasn't just an apology! I've gotten free stays at great hotels, first class airplane tickets, cruises... clothing... MONEY... even bananas!"

Now it may be that Silverman has been writing only to those rare senior executives who still give a damn about anything other than their compensation packages. Or it may be that when Silverman began writing to the top people, 20 years ago, we still had a different breed of corporate manager running things, and this has upped his overall kill rate. Besides, who knows what "huge percentage" means?

Even so, Silverman seems to be on to something. His book reveals some techniques that may help you get some kind of compensation for the misery some miserable company has put you through.

My favorite: "Praise with faint damn," a technique for what I see essentially as getting the CEO to lower his guard by sucking up to him - before you figuratively grab his private parts and twist. I love this stuff. That's why I'm shamelessly endorsing my old colleague's book.

Listen, in a world where even many CEOs have ceased to give a damn about their customers - and everybody who works for them is too scared, too lazy, or too dumb to solve an irate customer's problem - you need Bruce Silverman's book. Who knows, by complaining you might just save corporate America from itself.

--The New York Crank
[...]

If you usually just ignore it when you get bad service, and let things slide, this book will teach you how to stand up for yourself and to write effective letters that will get your point heard. It's a very fast, entertaining read, and it works. Just the other day I used the techniques in the book to e-mail a local restaurant about a sub-par meal and terrible service I had- within a day I received a response from the owner with an apology, and an offer of 2 free meals. The owner welcomed the feedback, and I got a dinner for 2, for taking about 5 minutes out of my day, well worth the time. This book describes how to handle everything from small problems to luxury vacations gone wrong.. and it's amazing what you can get if you can complain the right way. A must read, and a fun stocking stuffer/ gift item.

When my car was towed in the middle of the night as I waited for my daughter to give birth to our first grandbaby I didn't think there was anything that could be more upsetting. That was, until I was told by the management company - that had NOT marked the no parking spot at her apartment complex - that I was just plain out of luck and $265.00 in towing expenses!

Thanks to tips from Mr. Indignity on the power of the written word, I was able to write a complaint letter that resulted in a gift card from the management company reimbursing me not only for the full amount of the tow, but an additional $40.00 for my troubles and a special delivery baby gift for our grandbaby.

Thank you Mr. Indignity!

Nancy Cole
Los Angeles, CA.

First of all, if you need to learn how to write a compelling complaint letter that gets you something in return for a bad customer service experience, then this is your book. Bruce outlines all the steps to a writing a letter that gets results, and his personal letter examples and the responses they created are fun to read.

I have known Bruce for a number of years and actually used to work for him - before he published this book. Whenever someone in the agency would have a bad experience, Bruce would come to help with his wealth of experience and a word document choked-full with complaint letters. The letters we wrote almost always worked, and having a airline or hotel experience would actually create some excitement, rather than frustration.

Anyways, I bought this book myself. It's a great read, and if you're serious about writing a complaint letter, then it's a must buy. Bruce clearly outlines the steps to writing a good complaint letter, and if you follow them, you will succeed.

Some people are meant to be physicians, some are meant to be politicians. Bruce Silverman (aka Mr. Indignity) was meant to be the world's best complainer. As a seasoned marketing executive with years of experience as a consumer, Mr. Indignity has perfected the art of capitalizing from dissatisfaction.

Mr. Indigity explains his process for writing complaint letters with the precision of a science. For hardcore business folks like myself, some of the advice may sound counterintuitive. His letters take an informal tone. Some of them can be lengthy. A dash of showmanship spices up the presentation of his complaints. But, it all makes sense.

The book adopts a learn-through-example approach. The bulk of the pages are past letters Mr. Indignity has written to managers expressing his frustration. Most of his complaints deal with the customer service at airlines and hotels. (His enjoyment of travel is evident!) With each letter, he gives an analysis of how his complaint was structured, why he felt it worked, and the resolution from the company.

How to Complain is a fun read that can lead to some fun adventures afterwards. It's a guide to not only profiting from a bad experience, but building a relationship with customer service managers. As emphasized by Mr. Indignity, use your complaint letters as an opportunity to make some new friends (a process he calls `gushing'). If management truly wants to make things right for the customer, you may find yourself treated like royalty on your next encounter!

When I read Nancy Coles' review of "How To Complain..." I thought to myself, "wow, if something like that happened to me, what would I do?" So I checked out Amazon to buy the book. You could buy new ones for $13.95 or buy used ones for $34.02. I got a new one, saved $20.07 and didn't have to complain to anyone. What a book!

Over the years, I've had some success in getting my complaints with various companies (i.e. Sears, Magic Chef, Safeway, etc.,) resolved either in person or by letter. Nevertheless, I was intrigued when I saw the author of this book, Bruce Silverman, pitching it on 20-20 recently. I thought that if I picked up a few additional pointers in "kvetching", the book would soon pay for itself.
On opening the box, I was somewhat surprised to find out how small the book actually is: 6" x 9", and 122 pages printed in 12 point? type. I read it in about 45 minutes, and immediately felt a bit let down. I almost felt like writing to the author & complaining that the book was overpriced. But I decided not to, because it did in fact contain a few new ideas that I can, and will put into use at some point.
I looked around my house to try and find something that I could justifiably write a letter of complaint about, just for practice as it were.
I then remembered that last year I had purchased a new pair of glasses at a large optical chain in the local mall. Within weeks the coloring of the frames started to deteriorate and flake off in spots. However, I had procrastinated about returning them to the store. Over time, the paint wear of my CHINESE MADE frames became more & more obvious. Now I had a legitimate complaint. I expected to go to the store, be given a hard time and be told that the warranty was up. My next step would be a letter of complaint to the President of the corporation a-la-Bruce Silverman.
You cannot imagine my dismay when the store manager immediately offered to replace the frames with a new pair in a gunmetal color that shouldn't show wear. He had shot the ground from right under me, so now I'm still looking for a chance to put into practice what I've learned from " How To Complain. etc."

This $14 book has only two good pieces of advice in writing letters of complaint: 1. always write to a top executive and 2. always write in a professional manner that includes lots of details, facts and specific examples. And this is how the rest of this book sucks:

The majority of success that Bruce Silverman experienced came from companies with whom he already had well established relationships such as airlines, hotels, car rental, restaurants, cruise lines, etc. It is much easier to get positive results ($$) from companies with whom one has pre-existing relationships through frequent-customer clubs than from one-time purchase types of companies. Fun and profit is more likely to come from when you play the loyal-customer card.

A point in case is the letter written in the Chutzpah chapter - a complaint letter from a one-time traveler would have never gotten two free first class airfare tickets. Another point in case is Silverman's complaint letter to Delta Airlines which is appropriately found under the chapter of how to complain when you don't care about the outcome because he did not care about burning bridges with Delta. Why? Because Silverman does not have any loyalty invested in Delta.

Silverman's s rate of effectiveness significantly drops when complaint letters are directed at other retailers and manufacturers with whom you don't have a relationship. Here you run the risk of a company not caring about one single solitary purchase when a retailers and manufacturers makes the bulk of its profit from millions of others who don't complain. And he admits this in his book.

In the chapter under Failures, he includes two letters that do not get ANY fun or profit. I guess when you write a how-to book it is okay to waste valuable chapters that include info with absolutely no value at all. Why spend the time, effort and energy to write long, detailed, drawn-out complaint letters for nothing in return? Where's the fun and profit in venting?

Finally, I'm going to shine a light on a "little secret" in this Silverman's book: In most of his letters he mentions that he has spent thousands, not hundreds, but thousands of dollars with a company. Other than the one million miles he has racked up, I doubt he spent as much as he says he has in his letters. He mentions these amounts to add weight to his letters, to make it appear that he is a loyal customer.

I was let down by this book and I returned it for a prompt full refund of my purchase price.