Dear limited companies, you’re hurting us.

No one enjoys having conflict, no matter what the situation, whether it is in the workplace, with friends or a partner. All can be wearing and tearing, but at least you know you are dealing with human-entities.

Having entered several complex disputes with limited companies myself, I began to realise that these disputes with inanimate objects can be just as taxing on one’s self-confidence, well-being and mindset, if not more.

Soon after beginning legal proceedings, I discover myself in a downward spiral towards depression, and as the months pass, I spend a great deal of time self-reflecting on the damage that large companies can do to their consumers, not just financially but emotionally too.

I tracked the steps I went through, with the hope that this is read not by us consumers, but by the carers of the limited companies, to encourage you to stop and think before you bulldoze your way into your consumer’s life.

Step 1 — Frustration

It starts quite small actually, for me it started with disputing with a limited company over poor services or faulty merchandise. But this ongoing back and forward can become a lonely process.

Firstly, it is not likely that your friends around you have experienced this, and secondly, it isolates the consumer by individualising them and giving them several representatives to manage their one dispute. You automatically know you are not a priority. Passed from person to person, your case to them is not significant, but to you, it’s your life.

Frustration grows from this and one’s ‘fight or flight’ instinct will eventually kick in.

Step 2 — Doubt

You start talking about the problem with friends and family, you do this as a sounding board to make sure you’re in the right. Sometimes its easy to adopt the role of the ‘victim’ without actually being to one. Not only are you speaking to people around you, but you’re also being passed from person to person within the company.

When dealing with many voices eventually your instinct will kick in and you start to hesitate about continuing with the dispute. Not knowing if you’re in the right, or maybe having a negative past experience will lead you to either abandon your pursuit.

We’ve all been there. Big or small, we’ve all picked up the phone, let’s say you’ve ordered food from a delivery service and it’s late, or wrong. So you pick up the phone to talk to customer support. It rings, and then it rings some more, during which you’re listening to a tinny version of some Sam Smith song. After 5 minutes, which probably cost you more than your food, you hang up and eat the pizza, even though you wanted sushi.

Food is one thing, but when it comes to your livelihood, you don’t get to hang up.

Step 3 — Repetition

Throw some money at it and hope it goes away. That’s usually the easiest way for limited companies to fix a problem. Even if you do, that doesn’t mean that you’ve solved the problem. There are another two that you need to address. Firstly, you need to acknowledge (even if just internally) that you have caused someone emotional distress (that is not good for your karma points!) so actively try to change it. Secondly, think about what has happened, take that time to self-reflect on what happened.

If you have a customer who continues to seek a resolution after dealing with many people, it would appear that a resolution is most likely impossible. Promises of a resolution eventually have no fruition. Dealing with the many people during a dispute is reliving the experience repeatedly, from the beginning. Don’t let your customers go through this, figure out why they are being passed around and stop it. Help them find a resolution.

Being reminded of the negligence after some time will soon diminish your customer’s hope for a solution to be found.

Step 4 — Hope

limited companies train their representatives to appear helpful, but they are given little to no authority to resolve any real or complex issues. I mean how many times have you heard the line:

“I’m really sorry that happened to you, let me just get my manager.”

This initially gives one hope that the right thing will finally be done, but eventually, hope is lost after time passes or they give up to non-answers. As humans, hope is something that when destroyed becomes damaging to our sense of being.

Step 5 — The consumer’s choice

If someone is choosing to pursue a dispute and repeating the events to a representative on the phone, they are constantly reliving the experience. This is trauma. Their businesses are at stake — this is their livelihood.

There is the time invested into resolving a dispute, where the person on the other side (representative) is being paid to ‘resolve’ the issue, but the customer is the one paying for the resolution with their time and, in some cases money (court, postage, calls etc.).

Delaying with this daily is an everyday reminder. This can cause anxiety. Being reminded of the loss, betrayal and then the frustration. No human deserves to go through that.

Step 6 — Empathy

The majority of CEOs managing these limited companies are made up of narcissists because their personality type is the type to pursue those roles. Their lack of empathy and their belief of self-importance gives them the confidence to be cutthroat in climbing the ladder to the top.

Once there, the next step is to make their company look good by making employees happy by winning their favour. As a result, the customer does not receive empathy and their needs become neglected.

Much like a guardian to a powerful child, the CEO must mind their company with its resources, making sure it survives as this would be a reflection of them. Keep profits up, keep that bonus coming, keep passing on problems from department to department.

Step 7 — Non-living entity

A limited company is a non-human entity, so liability for any dispute with a company stays with the non-human entity.

The truth is, customer care has been on the decline for some time. Where we once had free Apple repairs and replacements, we now have chargers and headphones at a cost, because once the customer has the product or the business is well-known, they are no longer a priority to the limited as the limited becomes its own main priority.

The problem here is empathy. An inanimate object cannot have empathy, much like a limited or narcissist cannot have empathy and must be taught it. Without empathy the customer allows themselves to be victimised.

The representative on the other side cannot feel or care about the customer’s frustrations more than they do their job. However, the customer’s feelings must be neglected as it cannot be taken into consideration for a disputed service or object.

Step 8 — Dead-ends

Customers are fed dead-ends, such as more numbers to call, addresses to write to in order to frustrate the consumer into giving up on their dispute. Of course, some cases are far more serious where the faulty merchandise or poor service will result in a customer losing their home, income or causing grave damage to personal property that is needed for everyday living. This will take a toll on the customer affected — eventually causing them to again abandon their dispute.

The time it takes to resolve a dispute can vary from hours to years and it is up to the customer to ensure that they are resolved at all, even though they are not being paid during the process and have already paid for the service/product.

So limited companies, what have you learnt? Let me summarise for you in one sentence: we are the humans, treat us that way.