Listen up, big companies

Companies spend massive amounts of money communicating carefully crafted messages to us, their customers and potential customers, through advertising.

But what if their customers want to talk back; want to be heard and for that company to fix their problems? Ah, well, they can call or e-mail "customer care", which might or might not work out for them.

What companies desperately want to do is contain complaints, to keep any issue between them and a customer rather than have it aired in public.

Which is why when someone vents about a corporate on Twitter they are likely to get a swift response from the company urging them to DM (direct message) their details so that the issue can be dealt with, out of the public gaze.

But a really angry customer won't be contained. They post on social media, they turn their cars into mobile billboards dissing the motor dealership, they "go to the media".

Those with really deep pockets go big. In 2005, businessman Andy Gray famously paid for a half-page advert in the Cape Times to expose the deplorable service he'd received from Land Rover.

Nine years on, and despite having social media at his disposal, Cell C subscriber George Prokas chose to rant in the physical universe. His R61 000 banner, erected on Randburg's Beyers Naude Drive 10 days ago, almost immediately loomed large on social media, and then in the traditional media. "The most useless service provider in SA - Cell C Sandton City" it screamed.

Days later, a bakkie, presumably driven by an FNB client, was seen pulling a mobile billboard trailer mocking the bank's "How can we help you?" slogan - past Prokas's banner.

Cell C could have lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, demanding that Prokas substantiate his claim with hard evidence or remove the banner. Such proof would have been hard to come by, of course, "most useless" being a highly subjective term. (And having dealt with thousands of cellphone-related complaints in my 16 years as a consumer journalist, I can think of quite a few that involved jaw-droppingly appalling customer abuse on the part of the networks and service providers.)

Instead, Cell C argued it had to go to court to get the banner removed to protect its brand and its employees.

In the absence of any public attempt to deal with the actual issue - the series of events that had led Prokas to voice his discontent in such an extraordinary way - it was a spectacular PR failure.

Only after the Johannesburg High Court found that the banner was "fair comment" and not unlawful - to the delight of anyone who has ever felt bullied by a big company - did Cell C CEO Jose dos Santos step up and comment on the matter.

While insisting that the "blacklisting" of Prokas's phone was legitimate, something Prokas vehemently disputes, Dos Santos conceded that processes had not been followed and that solving the matter should have been escalated by the franchise.

What he should have done, as CEO, was engage with journalists and on social media the day the story broke, saying that, whatever the merits of the case, he was mortified that it had got to that point, and outlined the steps he intended to take to fix it.

Instead, the company's media department went into lockdown mode, issuing a one-line "We are attempting to resolve the matter" response to the media who sought comment on day one, myself included.

Prokas's attorney, Raymond Druker, said his client had issued two warnings to the management of that Sandton franchise: first, that he was going to stop paying the subscription for his daughter's phone because it had gone in for repair and not been returned, for months, and second, that the banner would go up if the "blacklisting" was not removed.

The managers must have assumed he was bluffing about the banner, Druker said. "Ninety-nine percent of people would not go to that amount of trouble and expense to stand by their rights."

• What mistreated consumers can and should do, at virtually no cost, is make use of the Small Claims Court.

It is especially effective when dealing with big corporates, in the case of amounts not more than R15000. Name the CEO in your letter of demand, which requires him or her to appear in person. For details go to http://www.justice.gov.za/scc/scc.htm.

Whichever way you choose to get justice, collect the evidence and present it concisely, without slurs or abusive language.

The power is in your hands now.

GET IN TOUCH: You can contact Wendy Knowler with your consumer issues via email: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler