Yep, complaining works, anywhere — if it’s done the right way.
We ALL Win: The Social Benefits of Complaining
When something goes wrong, we all wonder if we really should complain. After all, we don’t want to be embarrassed or proven wrong in public. Yet, somewhere deep in our soul we know that a defective product or poor service shouldn’t go unheralded. We know silence is complicity, and a failure to act is cowardice. So we complain, and the world is the better for it — or, at least we feel better — for a short while, probably.
According to Professor Bryan Dwyer (insertmarketinghere.com/tag/types-of-complainers), complainers can be grouped into four categories:
Passives are the least likely to complain to either the organization or to other consumers through word of mouth; they either doubt the effectiveness of complaining, or it goes against personal values and norms.
Voicers are likely to complain to the organization but not to other consumers; they believe complaining is likely to resolve the problem.
Irates are more likely to complain to other consumers than to the organization; unlikely to give the provider a second chance, they switch providers and actively spread negative word-of-mouth.
Activists are the most likely to complain to the organization and to other consumers; they believe all forms of complaining have positive results.
Airing a grievance can have far-reaching consequences. In the eighteenth century, citizens’ complaints over unfair taxation that were ignored by England were a big part of what led to the American Revolution and the birth of the United States.
Sometimes, the failure of government to act upon citizens’ complaints can have far-reaching, unforeseen consequences that may lead to its overthrow by ballot and almost tear a country apart.
Success Story
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney became Canada’s equivalent of King George III in 1992 by turning a deaf ear to protests over his proposals to change the Canadian constitution. His inability to hear the collective grumble of the electorate sank the Charlottetown Accord in a national referendum that year. During the run-up to the vote, Prime Minister Mulroney further alienated the electorate by calling opponents of the accord “enemies of Canada.” Voters complained that they were being bullied by the “political class” and rejected the accord by 54.4 percent.
A majority of voters in seven of the ten provinces (including Quebec) voted against the accord, with only Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and the Northwest Territories voting in favour. Surprisingly, 62 percent of Aboriginals on reserves voted against the Accord as well, despite its proposals for Aboriginal self-government.
Meanwhile, Stephen Harper, a policy wonk for the conservative Reform Party, framed the referendum as the ordinary people of Canada against political “elites.” In the subsequent federal election, Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative Party won only two seats. The PCs were ultimately taken over by the Reform Party, and Harper is now in his third term as Conservative prime minister. In effect, a dissatisfied citizenry staged a bloodless coup — Canadian-style.
A positive consequence of the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord was the trend away from formal constitutional reform and the use of intergovernmental agreements and government legislation, like recognizing “the Québécois” as a “nation within Canada,” giving Quebec veto power over future constitutional amendments, and transferring labour-market training to all provinces.
Since 1992, the phrase constitutional reform has become toxic in most political circles — the enduring legacy of Mr. Mulroney’s bellicosity and Canada’s refusal to buy a tainted product. In effect, Canadian voters did the right thing: they grumbled, and they voted.
Results of the Referendum on the Charlottetown Accord
| JURISDICTION | VOTED YES | % YES | VOTED NO | % NO |
| Newfoundland | 133,193 | 62.9 | 77,881 | 36.5 |
| Prince Edward Island | 48,687 | 73.6 | 17,124 | 25.9 |
| Nova Scotia | 218,618 | 48.5 | 230,182 | 51.1 |
| New Brunswick | 234,010 | 61.3 | 145,096 | 38.0 |
| Quebec | 1,710,117 | 42.4 | 2,232,280 | 55.4 |
| Ontario | 2,410,119 | 49.8 | 2,397,665 | 49.6 |
| Manitoba | 198,230 | 37.8 | 322,971 | 61.6 |
| Saskatchewan | 203,361 | 44.5 | 252,459 | 55.2 |
| Alberta | 483,275 | 39.7 | 731,975 | 60.1 |
| British Columbia | 525,188 | 31.7 | 1,126,761 | 68.0 |
| Yukon | 5,354 | 43.4 | 6,922 | 56.1 |
| Northwest Territories | 14,750 | 60.6 | 9,416 | 38.7 |
| Total Canada | 6,185,902 | 44.6 | 7,550,732 | 54.4 |
In the following chapters, I will help you to understand your rights as a consumer and show you winning strategies for getting a refund, respect — and maybe even revenge.
Chapter Two
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
For ordinary causes our contentious system has great merit as a means of getting at the truth. But it is a denial of justice in small causes to drive litigants to employ lawyers, and it is a shame to drive them to legal aid societies to get as a charity what the state should give as a right.
— Roscoe Pound, “The Administration of Justice in the Modern City,” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 26 (1913), pp. 302–08
A Consumer Bill of Rights
In his March 15, 1962, speech to the United States Congress, President John F. Kennedy listed four basic consumer rights — to safety, to be informed, to choose, and to be heard. By 1985, the United Nations had expanded those four into a Consumer Bill of Rights, which includes the right to:
safety
be informed
choose
be heard
satisfaction of basic needs
redress
consumer education
a healthy environment
Jim Guest, the President of Consumers Union and publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, believes there should be a ninth consumer right: the right to privacy. He had this to say at the fiftieth anniversary of the Consumer Federation of America Assembly on March 12, 2012:
Who could have predicted that we’d have a tool like the Internet that provides so much opportunity, but at the same time, exposes each and every one of us to having our most personal information put at risk? Fundamentally, when I talk about consumer privacy, I’m talking about trust. When you hand over your private information to an online company, you’re trusting that your information will be treated fairly and responsibly.
Guest’s warnings are particularly relevant to Canadians today. We have our own “Patriot Act,” called the Anti-Terrorism Act, which amended the CSIS Act and the National Defence Act (read Part V.1). We have also set up our own American Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under the CSIS Act. And Canada’s Communications listening is part of the “Five Eyes” international intelligence community, an alliance of five English-speaking countries that share signals intelligence.
I have my own version of a consolidated list. I believe that, basically, citizens should be:
sold safe products,
given the facts needed to make informed choices,
given