“Instead of reaching for your drama queen tiara, why not try…

* Rereading the directions
* Retracing your steps
* Searching for an answer online
* Finding an alternate solution
* Walking away and coming back to the problem later, when you’re sober”

Do that, and THEN share the problem, and the solution. Because as someone else said, someone has probably had the same experience. That way, not only do you learn from your experience, but you can share the knowledge or insight you gained with someone else.

Kind of like you just did with this post! :)

I understand where you are coming from. Sometimes people can use their blog/Twitter/Facebook as their personal therapist, expressing all emotions – good and bad.

While I agree with you about cooling off and thinking twice about a post's worthiness in time's of heated emotion, sometimes it just feels good to have an outlet. I look at it as a sometimes necessary selfishness.

To me the purpose is two fold.

1. While I am only one voice, I find a piece of myself feels that if each of us voices the same concern, it will be reciprocated. If not by the company, but through the beauty of web searches. If I look up Verizon cell phones, for instance, and come across a number of blogs detailing their bad experiences, it will make me think twice if they're more thought out than ranting messes.

2. And I may fail at this, but I hope it can be a source of entertainment in a sort of way. If not at least a good discussion point for readers.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by LisaBarone: What to do BEFORE reaching for your drama queen tiara http://tinyurl.com/ylpylbr via @justinkownacki…

As far as I am concerned, businesses that hide behind websites with no telephone number posted and/or no direct-to-human email address are indirectly asking for rants, bile-infected tweets and scathing blog posts.

Why?

By making themselves unavailable and unapproachable, they tell the Customer, “You do not matter.” Effectively, the message is, “Our time is more valuable than yours (even though we have your credit card information).”

When an issue arises (and all businesses are subject to “issues”), there should be a way to resolve those issues. Typical starting points are telephone numbers, email addresses and online forms. With no telephone number and no apparent email address, I recently had a situation where all I had was an online form.

Using the form as a starting point, I received a confirmation and was told in a canned response I would be contacted “immediately” by someone from the company. That never happened.

And my credit card was charged again, and again, and again!

When a Company does not respond to multiple emails and there is no phone number to call, then I have to take more of my time to resolve an issue. At this point, that is inconvenient but necessary.

Writing a blog post or tweeting my experience becomes the most convenient way *for me* to get the company's attention after multiple attempts at resolution have failed.

I can appreciate not everyone wants to read about a bad experience with a business. But, at the very least, those rants, posts and tweets may serve as a warning to others: caveat emptor!!

After several days – I did write about it – but in context of demonstrating with a comparison of how things could have been done better – not just a complaint – I was able to fit it into the offer me solutions – offer me alternatives frame.

Regards