If you don't treat customer service staff with a basic amount of respect then you deserve everything you get.
Unfortunately some people think "the customer is always right" means the relationship they have with service staff is one of master and slave.
( Zuowan, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 13:20, 1 reply)

I seem to surprise people when I'm complaining by being nice
I start polite and friendly, explaining my issue (it might well be my mistake after all). I ask them nicely what they can do to help. This works extremely well in person if you smile nicely. The staff on the Customer Service desk in Tesco look stunned when I do this to them.
If you still don't get what you want, get firm, but try not to get angry (I struggle with this), but whatever you don't get rude or abusive - they will be totally justified to ask you to leave (or simply end the call if on the 'phone).
Remember that these people are just doing their job - no matter how awful the customer service is at Santander, British Telecom, British Gas and so on. (Smile bank has got it right - other firms could learn from them).
( heyrudi has just found this setting, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 15:45, closed)

It works, when the staff aren't jobsworth robots - so it's always best to start off as if they're real people.
We missed a 6am holiday flight, largely our own fault, and went to the Thomson help desk. They were so astonished that we came in with a smile and the attitide that "We screwed up. We also know the next flight out to our original destination is in four days, so have you got flights today to anywhere else interesting we could take instead?" that we had three of their staff dedicated to us for over 20 minutes, coming up with suggestions and calling head office for options. In the end one of them worked out a way to get us to our original destination only a few hours later. Top service!

Shame that the company itself is so bloody cheapskate that we had to wait two hours for their single contracted baggage service team to get round to unloading our plane on the way back.
( Fronds are waving gently on, Tue 7 Sep 2010, 13:47, closed)

It's always best to be polite
I remember when I was a frontline phone monkey for Dixons/The Link/Curry's about 10 years back.

Some people were treated so shabbily by the company, but were still so polite that you'd go out of your way to help them.

Some people, despite being almost 100% in the right, were so snappy and rude that you'd go out of your way to make their lives difficult.

It's always worth being nice to people - it gets you a lot further and you finish the call feeling happy and human. It's also not the phone person's fault you have a problem. However, a bit of snappiness and frustration is understandable and, provided there is no personal abuse or swearing then it has to be coped with - it's what the phone person gets paid for.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Wed 8 Sep 2010, 14:31, closed)