When You've Been Wronged & You Know You're Right

September 25,2009

Interview with Ron Burley author of Unscrewed: The Consumer's Guide to Getting What You Paid For

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Mike Carruthers:
Rule number one to get what you want when a company's done you wrong, is to not scream and yell.

Ron Burley:
If you scream and yell you marginalize yourself, you allow them to write you off as a crazy.

Ron Burley, author of the book Unscrewed says if a company is unwilling to do the right thing, you have to take effective action. For example a friend of Ron's had an on-going billing problem with her cell phone company and it was a public company.

I bought ten shares of stock in the cell phone company - now I call Investor Relations and I say, " I don't believe that we should be treating our customers this way - so you know what? I am going to show up at our annual meeting, I am going to walk up to that microphone and tell President/CEO... exactly how we're treating our customers." 12 minutes - that's how long it took to get a call and an apology for the five month billing error - telling her it was corrected.

Ron had a horrible experience with a car dealership that was unwilling to make things right. So Ron went to see the sales manger with a manila folder full of flyers that said how unfair the dealership was.

He says, "What are you going to do with these?" I said, "Well, I'd bet in a handful of Saturdays standing outside of your dealership on that public sidewalk, I can talk to people and you will lose ten times as much business than you will just taking care of me right now." He got up from his desk -  5 minutes later he comes back and he says, " I'm sorry we've made a mistake - would you mind waiting for a couple of minutes while we cut you a check?"

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.