Best Customer Complaint Sites

MeasuredUp.com

Are you not on speaking terms with a particular business? Well, MeasuredUp.com essentially acts as an intermediary between you and the companies you hate. Big name business like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Orbitz and Best Buy have signed up with MeasuredUp to respond to consumer complaints on the site. Consider it a way to get around talking to representatives on the phone. (It’s also worth noting that there are thousands of posts on this site that are actually positive, which doesn’t seem to be the case on the other sites we mentioned.)

Favorite Complaint: [About a Carvel in Connecticut] “They are rude in that store, and use Hershey's chocolate whenever they can. They put it on Fudgey the Whale cakes, in sundaes and sell it in containers if you want to buy carvel fudge. they do not tell you it is hershey's... they pass it off as carvel fudge. i saw the Hershey's container out and questioned them and they denied it. It tastes just like Hershey's but if I wanted Hershey's i would buy Hershey's!”

Unless this post was typed up by an aggravated child (which is certainly a possibility), something tells me they should probably just lay off the ice cream sundaes all together.

Review Sites

Besides the Web sites mentioned above, there are plenty of review sites that you can use as an outlet to complain about companies. Yelp.com is a good tool for critiquing retail and the food services industry and StreetAdvisor.com is good for doing the same with real estate. And Amazon is a good forum in general, since many companies are sensitive to their customer ratings on the site.

How Businesses Should Respond to Customer Complaints

While the Internet may be a boon for frustrated consumers, it can end up being a serious liability for businesses. But there is a way for business owners to turn this to their advantage. If you stay linked in to the various forums we mentioned here, you ultimately have direct access to your customer base and can work to change their opinions. Inc Magazine recommends that businesses be mindful not to take complaints personally and make an effort to respond to complaints earnestly and by treating the customer “as an individual.”