Two weeks ago an acquaintance from one of the dance clubs I frequent (just my way of staying fit you understand) asked me if I could help her in a dispute with a garage.  Seems she had wanted to test drive a Jaguar she was looking to buy, but once the garage realised the applicant was female she was turned down, because (she felt) the garage didn’t believe a woman would buy this car.  “I don’t want to put the mileage up on the car” said the garage manager.

I wrote a letter on her behalf to the garage, complaining, and pointing out various issues, and suggesting that there were matters that would concern the Advertising Standards Authority.

A note came back saying that they had done nothing wrong, and that they had checked with the ASA, and their advert was fine.

I immediately upped the tempo, for two reasons.  First, I know from experience that it is very hard to get a clear answer like that on a complex issue from the ASA within a day, so I didn’t believe their response.  Second, the garage immediately changed its web site to remove the area that had caused my acquaintance to make the complaint. In other words they were trying to fob me off and cover their tracks.

We are now plotting the next move – and it might well cause a fair amount of harm to this garage.  I’m doing it because my friend was genuinely upset by the experience, (not out of vindictiveness or because I have nothing better to do with my time).

But also I am doing it because the garage did not have the decency to admit an error, and (in my personal view) started treating me like an idiot.  (If there’s one thing I can’t stand it is being treated like an idiot).

Now I come to my point.  As I immediately realised, it has never before been so easy for customers (or in our case a would-be customer) to fight back.

Indeed there are so many options for the customer who wants to make life tough for the errant retailer, it is hard to know where to start.  If you are really angry you can set up a web site just exposing what the company did to you.  Or you can go onto a message board and leave messages about the company.   I could write about the company here (although I am not going to mention them by name – at least not at the moment, since I want to see what the ASA says first).

You might argue that no one is going to see or notice any of these things - except that if the person who is doing the attacking knows how to get a web site up the Google rankings, and if that person is angered enough, it could happen.   Besides which, dealing with the ASA does take time.  Three minutes to make a complaint, three hours at the very least to answer it.  Sometimes more like three days.

(In this case the situation is likely to be even more annoying for the firm, because it is part of a franchise, with each franchised car dealership sharing the franchise name.  The rest of the dealers are going to get so angry if they feel they are being tarred with the same brush!)

Of course the above is a private affair – I am helping a friend who was genuinely upset.   But it can happen to any of us – sometimes through the crass stupidity of an employee, sometimes through an error.

So in my view all companies need to stay alert.

The first way to do this is through using Google Alerts to monitor every mention of your company on the internet day by day.

Monitoring any mention of your name is the first step towards recognizing when someone you have irritated  is getting worked up.

What’s more you can often have the chance to respond.  If someone says on a blog, “I tried Hamilton House and they were terrible, didn’t answer the phone, never called back, took a week to respond to an email…” then at least I can get in there and say, “I really can’t understand how that happened – but I want to start by apologising.  I’m the chairman and….”

There’s a lot more that can be done and I will come back to this shortly, but I would say everyone should monitor their brand names on Google Alerts.

If you have not used the service and don’t know the ins and outs, give me a call on 01536 399 000 and I will talk you through it.

Tony Attwood

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