Make your voice heard

As customers, the British are not noted for making a fuss when things go wrong. We are perhaps more likely than any other people to put up with slow service, rude sales people, being ignored at the customer service desk or placed on interminable hold when the brand-new computer does not work.

The French rant, the Italians scream, the Americans complain long, loud and publicly, while the British tend to stand patiently until someone bothers to see what they want. We get the standards that we are prepared to accept, and we sometimes seem to accept the bare minimum.

This hardly encourages a high level of service, which is just as well because we seldom get it. Comparatively few British people make a career in a service capacity – think of the variety of accents and nationalities you meet behind the pub bar, at a restaurant or in a call centre – and many of them are churlish and unbothered by customer anxiety or unhappiness.

So the vicious circle continues; people in the service industries too often behave as if they are doing the customer a favour, while the person paying for it accepts this as being the norm. Perhaps these attitudes are slowly altering, but many of us are so accustomed to them that we can very easily not express deserved dissatisfaction let alone embark on a full-blown, public row.

This has relevance for Service people and for their advisers, line managers, facilitators and consultants when they are spending their own or Service money on training, education, resettlement or accommodation. Undoubtedly the vast majority of people offering training and other services to people in or leaving the Armed Forces are honest, trustworthy and reliable, invariably delivering exactly what they say they will.

However, even excellently maintained machinery sometimes goes wrong, and the best learning provider may employ a bad tutor, a first-rate individual can have an off day or a facility can just not be available. If and when this happens, the students who have suffered as a result should expect corrective action. This could be another course, a retaken module, a resit for an exam, return of fees, or any combination of these or other measures that redress the problem.

But this will only happen if there is a complaint that details what was promised, what happened, why it was unsatisfactory and what the outcome of this deficiency has been. It should be made as soon as possible after the event, to a person in authority and in a sensible tone that enables the problem to be understood by someone who was probably not present at the time, and which suggests that the complainant is a reasonable person and not one of life’s grousers.

Bear with the individual you are complaining to if they do not immediately understand the problem, if they want it in writing or if they do not have the authority to offer an immediate solution. If necessary, ask to speak with a supervisor or manager.

If the course of activity or the accommodation was funded by the Services, make sure, too, that your line manager and learning, education or resettlement adviser are aware of what happened. They should follow up any problem to ensure that you get satisfaction and that it will not be repeated.

Sometimes – and this only happens extremely rarely – the Service person gets into the hands of a cowboy organisation. There are very occasional reports of driver training with no vehicles, courses promised that do not exist, instructors with dubious backgrounds, and qualifications that are worthless, incomplete or cost a shed-load more money. This is where an early phone call is required to get immediate action because these operators simply want some quick money. They are not going to hang around waiting to be inspected or asked what is going on.

But the key for the individual is to make a complaint. If they do not, the money is paid, the problem is not sorted, the next students may suffer and even the reputable provider may have no knowledge that there is a glitch in the system; while the rogue traders escape discovery to prey on their next victims.

Resettlement, education and learning advisers should welcome feedback on their students’ experiences. It will guide future actions as well as inform more individuals about what happened last time. Feedback should be both positive and negative – the good and valuable alongside the bad and worthless. Wherever possible, ideas about how things should be improved should be included – it is very easy to criticise but often harder to find a better solution. Do not be put off if the first complaint does not get a response – try again. Good people should try to put things right; only the idle, inadequate or corrupt will not wish to help.