Shocked, Appalled, and Dismayed!
Look who's talking in BookPage!
Bob Adams
Children's Authors
Jim Arnosky |
The art of complaining
INTERVIEW BY MICHAEL SIMS The logo for Ellen Phillips's company, Ellen's Poison Pen, Inc., is a quill pen in an inkwell that has a skull on its side. After a feature story about her appeared in the Washington Post in February of 1997, calls came pouring in -- from prospective clients, agents, and editors who could foresee a public appetite for Phillips's specialty. She has since appeared on National Public Radio and NBC's Today Show. Her new book, Shocked, Appalled, and Dismayed! How to Write Letters of Complaint That Get Results, consists of over 300 pages of advice, anecdotes, examples, and even important addresses of consumer organizations and other relevant agencies. Phillips also writes articles on finance for Kiplinger's, and is a noted storyteller, author of The Tale-Teller Tells All. Ellen Phillips: I've been doing this since 1988, but I was never really successful with it until after the Post story hit, when everything kind of went ka-boom. That was supposed to be one of those little 15-minute interviews, and I think the reporter stayed for about five hours. No one was more surprised than I when I opened the paper and saw that eight-by-ten picture of me staring out at the world. It was very exciting. BookPage: How did Ellen's Poison Pen get its start? EP: One day I found a mailer in which there was a coupon for a $39.95 one-room carpet cleaning service. I called and they came and they cleaned. And they left a spot that was not there before. I called and very politely told the gentleman -- and I use the term quite loosely -- that I wanted them to come back and get that one spot up. He began screaming at me, hurling invectives, accusing me of spilling something after they had left so that I could then call and complain so as to get my whole house cleaned for free. I was absolutely stunned. So I wrote the owner of the company, told him exactly what had happened, and asked him to contact me. He called within a couple of days, and said that the reason the man the other man wasn't calling was because he had been fired. A couple of weeks later, my husband and some friends and I were talking about the incident, and the three of them said that I had enjoyed so much success with the letters I had written on mine and my family's behalf over the years, that there had to be people who desired the same to be done for them. I laughed, but decided I'd give it a shot. BP: And it's been growing ever since. EP: It's mushroomed. I started out with what I would call commonplace complaints -- airlines, cars, appliances -- and now it runs the gamut from heartless HMOs to credit cards, from flimsy furniture to social security issues to love letters. BP: So basically you're a writer, all of whose work is anonymous. EP: Yes, I'm a ghost writer. BP: Does that bother you, or do you feel you're getting all the credit you need? EP: A lot of it is credit I feel within myself, as well as getting appreciation from clients. I take such pride, and I feel such an affinity with my clients. I get very personally involved with them. When they get results, I get results. BP: And you've created a position that puts you ahead of people having to get a lawyer. EP: As a matter of fact, although I tell prospective clients that if they need an attorney please go ahead and get one, a number of my letters have become part of an attorney's brief. I like to think of myself as a professional problem solver. And one of the reasons I wrote the book is that I want to empower consumers. Let's face it; things go wrong. Products and services are not what they used to be. Many are inferior or shoddy. BP: And you become an unofficial, calm, rational consumer advocate. EP: The reason so many people don't get results even when they do complain is because they're so angry. We say and do things that we shouldn't. But we should try to keep things in perspective, to get the results we want. Consumers need to know that we can get redress for these wrongs. They need to know how to write letters of complaint or petition or appeal, in order to get what they fairly deserve.
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