BBC The One Show

The art of complaining has today reached the BBC with The One Show's resident consumer expert Dom Littlewood speaking about the UK's complaining inadequacies. It seems we as a nation are pretty poor with dealing with issues that rile us; we accept too easily a poor deal from our utility providers and the retail industry. Apparently we don't know how to complain and just resort to whinging, which of course doesn't solve anything and neither do we feel better for it.

Dom's top tips of the art of complaining included:

1. Avoid wasting time ringing call centres and instead write to complain. Find out the department in the company responsible for dealing with customer satisfaction, even a named person if you can, and go direct with your complaint.

2. Remember to make a note of all communication including dates and times of a phone discussion and the name of the person you spoke to. This is important if the case ends up going to court.

3. Always make a complaint in writing, keep it civil and try not to get upset and throw insults, important to remember if you do speak on the phone. If you do begin shouting and swearing the phone operator is within their rights to hang up on you.

BM