Do you remember when a business might have had a complaints desk?
Really caring businesses might have had a neighbouring second desk at which you could complain about how your complaint was dealt with at the first desk.
Nowadays, you can’t easily complain. Well, certainly not by phone. After being told your call is important to them, you are put on an endless hold with the tastefully chosen “[I Can’t Get No] Satisfaction” playing as the looped on-hold music.
You do have the option of posting online reviews of certain businesses, but a quick scan over current offerings can put you right off giving them any credence. So you’re probably left with banging your head against a brick wall.
I’m certainly not suggesting that all complaints deserve a sympathetic ear. Basil Fawlty may have been a fictional creation but the Fawlty Towers scripts can certainly be matched by reality. The guest, Mrs Richards, who said the view from the Torquay hotel window was “not good enough” was not as far-fetched as you might imagine.
From the real world comes the complaint that a certain hotel room had no ocean view. I need to add that the hotel concerned was in Mayfair, London. I have checked out the geography and can confirm for you that the closest beach to Mayfair is Bell Wharf Beach in Leigh on Sea, some 35 miles away.
And that’s as the crow flies – none of your pesky changing trains or buses. Also, from the real world comes the customer who complained after returning from a camping holiday on an approved “farm stay” site. He demanded a refund because his holiday had been ruined by the “intrusive noise of cows mooing.”
At a pet-friendly hotel, a customer demanded a refund because her dog didn’t enjoy the stay and was “constantly grumpy” throughout their visit. That almost deserves one of Basil Fawlty’s responses: “You ponce in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot, while I’m trying to run a hotel here. Have you any idea of how much there is to do?
Do you ever think of that? Of course not; you’re all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking around for things to complain about, aren’t you?”
I don’t think even John Cleese could have created this next one. A [real] guest came up with a rather unusual request for the restaurant chef: He wanted only the right leg of chicken to be served to him. The only reason I can think of for this is that he was a very staunch conservative and no amount of ridicule would make him chicken out of his request.
Other real complaints have been about the bed sheets being too brightly coloured and the ice cream being too cold. And someone once requested a honey and chocolate milk bath.
In August, New Zealand’s retailers and hospitality workers were invited to share some of their absurd complaints in an online forum. One story was shared by a barista. A woman brought back a cappuccino 40 minutes after purchase and complained that it was cold. The barista asked why she had waited so long to drink it and she explained that she didn’t like the foam on top and needed to wait for it to settle. He explained that was the very point of cappuccino, but she still posted a nasty Google review.
A possible Basil Fawlty response: “You snob! You stupid, stuck-up, toffee-nosed, half-witted upper-lass pile of pus!”
There are, of course, times when everything goes well. On this, I’ll give the last word, perhaps rather surprisingly, to Basil Fawlty:
“A satisfied customer! We should have him stuffed.”
- Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
