We bring you another part of the Consumerist’s series on tips on exercising your rights as a consumer, with our comments

1. Use a speaker phone – recording helps too
2. Set aside at least 30 minutes – On hold time alone can take that away
3. Get a human – Gethuman is very useful. And you can’t argue with an interactive voice response system
4. Gather your evidence – keep all written correspondence, recordings of conversations, financial statements, etc.
5. Act like a human – Acting like a rampaging animal won’t make someone want to help you.
6. Don’t think the world revolves around you – any corporation has a lot of customers…things shouldn’t be slow…but don’t expect instant results
7. Know your enemy – Become intimately familiar with the people you are fighting
8. Take notes – Writing down important information is a great way of organizing your thoughts and plan of attack
9. Don’t be afraid to hang up and try another operator – not everyone is as helpful or competent as you’d like
10. Run out the clock – Be patient…triumph takes time
11. Be firm – Don’t give up
12. Keep calmly repeating your story
13. Say exactly what you want – Have an idea of your desired course of action and/or compensation
14. Don’t ask for yes from someone who can only say no – don’t just ask for a supervisor…ask for someone who has the authority to act
15. Make a business case for your wants – don’t just say what you want…say why it is a good idea to give it to you
16. Honesty begets honesty – If they catch you in a lie, they won’t help you at all.
17. There’s sometimes more freebies to give out early in the day, or early in the quarter
18. Email a company executive, then print it out and mail it

The next ten tips are from the customer service representative side, courtesy who run CustomersSuck.com…with our notes, of course.

1. Be civil – they are human beings(hopefully)
2. Let the rep talk – nothing gets down when two people are talking at once
3. Don’t ramble – it undermines your position
4. Don’t blame reps for corporate policies – they aren’t management, and cannot change them
5. Remember the other person is a person – they don’t deserve your abuse
6. Demanding a supervisor will not always work – they often don’t have any authority either
7. Be reasonable and keep perspective
8. Consider seeing a therapist if you’re screaming at a powerless rep
9. Sometimes you just can’t be helped
10. Don’t tell them how long you’ve been on hold – It may have made you angrier…but the clock starts when they start talking to you

We recently decided here at Giving up The Ship to add to the focus of this blog with stories of consumers fighting against corporate illogic and insanity. In that vein, we refer you to this post from the Consumerist…their guide to fighting companies and winning.

1. Get Screwed by a Company – It happens all the time
2. Start a Blog
3. Post Your Initial Complaint
4. Enable comments
5. Stock Smoking Guns
6. Include contact information for the company
7. Embed a sitemeter
8. Insert Google Ads
9. Set Up Google Alerts
10. Submit to Clearinghouses
11. Actively pursue and post
12. Ignore the haters
13. Be prepared for the press

We intend to follow their advice.