How to make a complaint

How to effectively make a complaint.

Have you ever gotten upset and tried to change things in an organization, service or a business?  Sure we all have and it usually involves doing one of two things:

1.  We mumble to ourselves all kinds of obscene words and violent acts about the complaint.
2.  We flip out and think we get our way by being rude and mean towards someone.

Yesterday I dealt with a number 2-

I dealt with someone who was very irrate with service they have been receiving over the years, every month this person always has some sort of complaint about something.  They are always rude and trying to walk all over myself and people with whom they deal with.  I must admit when I am pushed, I don't smile and try and please you.  I answer you with logical answers and I try my best to get you to understand what I can do to the best of my abilities.
So when faced with more complaints yesterday, I layed out an easy solution for this person to follow, nothing difficult, simply a solution.  Well this person did not like my answer and proceeded to flip out on me attacking my personality, cursing at me and attacking me personally (customer service industry usual). 

I understand I cannot please everyone in this world and not everyone will like me.  I can accept this, but it brings me to why I'm writing this today.  I want people to understand how to effectively make a complaint.

1. Be nice
If you want something changed, you must learn to persuade by being nice and not rude.  You want people to accept your way of thinking and not make them angry.  The second you upset someone, they always resort to there own defense mechanism and never want to hear you out.

2. Complain to the right people
This is where this person always goes wrong.  They complain about something I have no control over, yes I can be a listener but when I cannot change it so why yell at me?
It's almost like yelling at the delivery person because you ordered no onions on your pizza yet the cook added onions. The delivery person can only do so much but they did not put onions on your pizza.

3. Just walk away
If nothing is happening complaint after complaint, that means the way you are complaining is not working.  Just walk away, I'm sorry to say but you are probably in the wrong (I know you don't want to hear that).  If you complain over and over and you never get results you simply become the person that people in the organization, business or service are complaining about.  You become a larger problem than the actual complaint.

Coming for a customer service industry I want you to understand, a complaint can help you but it can also hurt your credibility.  Everybody can appreciate feedback, but not many can understand criticism. 
The day you become angry, irrate or violent toward someone is the day you lose the battle.  You lose respect in the eyes of the person you attack.  Learn to be nice to people, that is the best method to get your way.  When you deal with a human being, understand you are also a human being and people like to be treated the same way you do.  Sure you may get bad service or not get your way...but it's life.  You cannot always get your way.  I know there books and courses that claim life should be grand but it isn't always that way.  This is how we learn, by not always getting what we want. 
Do you deserve the best in life, the answer is yes!  But you must earn it.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Can't have one without the other

Do you kick yourself in the butt, every time you make a decision to change something in your life because you always resort back to an old habit?

This is very common we decide to do something we want only to always fall back into old habits causing us frustration in believing we can never accomplish anything.  There is great news you do not have to get angry anymore because I want to explain what you must do to help you accomplish your dreams.

Many years ago when I was training to be a bodybuilder I would always start off new routines strong, training 4-5 days per weeks and eating a clean healthy diet, yet it seemed that a few weeks in I always fell off my diet routine.  Healthy almonds were now replaced with chips, and tuna sandwiches were replaced with burgers.  This happened all the time, I even had a journal, I wrote in blue for healthy foods I ate and had a red pen for when I ate unhealthy.  If you go through my old journals you always find lots of red the further you turn the pages.
Then I figured out what my trigger was, it's my weakness- CHIPS!  I love them.  If I ate chips I fell back into a comfort zone and forgot my eating habits I needed to follow. 
I made a decision, and it worked.  Instead of deciding to eating healthy 7 days a weeks and avoiding junk food I made a decision and that was to stop eating chips.  This worked very well for me, as long as I stayed away from those tasty chips I was fine but I had to decide to stay away from them.

We all have things we want to do and we make decisions to do them yet we don't make the decision to stop doing other things.  For every healthy habit you want to begin you must stop doing an old habit.  Replace a bad thing with a good thing.

If you want to quit smoking, you must begin by finding an activity to replace smoking with.  Let's say reading for example, in the evening when you are bored instead of smoking you choose to read, this will shift your focus on something entirely different.

Eliminating triggers
Triggers are things in your life that remind you to do actions.  So let's say for example you want to quit smoking and you find out your trigger is drinking.  Every time you drink you smoke, so decide for a little while to cut out the drinks.  Now even deeper, if the reason you drink is because your buddy Paul makes you want to have a drink, I think you know who you should spend less time with :-)

Replace bad habits with good habits, this shifts your focus to something else.  The sure way to win in life is by making positive strides to become greater.  Decide what can you start doing to enrich your life and what must you eliminate for your daily routine that stands in the way of you reaching your goal?

Stay motivated
Shane C

Who to run from

As I turned on the television this past weekend I heard the death of a celebrity who was once at the top of her game and as the years went by we watched her life crumble.  Some people blame her, some drugs yet a good majority of us know it has a lot to do with a person or people that influenced her.

This story is not all that uncommon, athletes and celebrities or even people you know personally have the world going for them and they meet someone that lead them down a path that destroys them emotionally and physically.  Whether it's from substance or influencing their simple daily actions, one person can destroy you so quickly through manipulation or the promise of an easy ride.  Let me put it another way, when someone offers you immediate gratification in life- YOU MUST RUN!  Believe me there was a time I was there!

There is a great positive to this blog though, I simply want you to know the warnings in life.  There are people who are less attractive you must gravitate towards.  What I mean by less attractive is not a physical thing it's more of what they offer you in life.  These people offer you a challenge, the kind of challenge that builds you to become greater and stronger.  They encourage you, they teach you and best of all you want to become just like them. One day you will call these people your mentor, coach, the person that showed you, best friend and even your biggest influence.
These people are hidden just outside your comfort zone.  You know to become someone of their intelligence and success and stature you will need to work on yourself daily by making positive strides towards your own success. You never regret meeting these great people once you are influenced, and these people see potential in you and break out of your shell.  

Unfortunately there are people you must watch for, they use you for their own needs, you never gain anything other than a lousy feeling time and time again from associating with these scums of the earth.  Any dream you have is shot down and any negative is pointed out, and this brings you down to the lowest of lows.
I'm watching someone in my life crumble, high class and potential is being replaced with shattered dreams and heartache.  It can be heard to watch because people cannot be helped until they help themselves.  They must want it, but once the want is there they can often forget how to come back on that road that leads to success after being influenced negatively for so long. 

Here is my warning, if people in life slowly start to lead you down to a lower class than you are use to by constantly bringing negative feelings inside you and your daily acts are filled with tasks that prevent you from your own success, as hard as it is you must start to move away from them.

Now, if you run into someone that presents you with personal work towards your own success and does not sugar coat the road towards that success, then use their advice and start climbing the ladder to success.  They know what they are doing.

Life is hard there are no shortcuts, sometimes you must be selfish because you have yourself to worry about but as long as you find balance the key to success is right there.  So stay away from people who offer you "easy" and move towards people who may offer you that unattractive long difficult ladder towards success.

Stay motivated
Shane C.

Make someone smile

Just for today I want you to try something and who knows it may start you on a more positive path.

You must have someone in your life that is totally negative but you still love them with all your heart, think of a person close to you.  Make the decision today to catch this person off guard with an act of kindness to show them you care.  Sure, they may make a negative comment about what you do but it's not about that.  It's about bringing a smile to their face when no one is looking.

I'm sure there is someone in your life that has forgotten how to smile or even why to smile.  Be the person that gets that smile on their face.  After all it is Valentine's day :-)

Stay motivated
Shane C