SPRINGFIELD -- If you’ve ever complained, expecting to get your money back, but got nothing instead, it could be your technique.  Some experts have some advice on how to complain and get results.

   It's hard enough to find a parking spot, navigate the crowds and carry all those packages.  The last thing you want to deal with this holiday season is bad customer service.  But we all have to do it from time to time.

  “Isn't that their job to make me happy, because what better advertisement is there than a happy customer?” wondered Debbie Branson.

  As Branson found out recently, the customer is not always right.  She recently bought a lawn mower.  The sales agent told her, if she didn't like it, she could bring it back, no questions asked.  When she did, however, the store charged her a $45 restocking fee, citing company policy.

  Branson complained to the sale agent, then to the store manager, then to about five operators at the national headquarters before finally sending a nasty e-mail message.

  “That was my last-ditch attempt to get results and I heard nothing,” she said.

  Etiquette coach Jacqueline Rogers isn't surprised. 

  “You can't force someone to feel what you feel,” said Rogers.

  She says anyone can complain but to complain and get the results you want takes practice and patience.

  “You're always going to get results when you complain.  They are either going to be negative or positive,” she said.

  She says the first step to getting positive results is to know to whom to complain.

  “Complaining to a clerk about prices is futile,” said Rogers.

  Step two is to get to the point.

  “If it's done in a professional way, a careful way, a well-thought out way, you will get results,” she said.

  Step three is to expect little, and you might get a lot.

  “I think anytime we set ourselves up for expecting something, we set ourselves up for disappointment,” said Rogers.

  Step four is to visit, call or write but don't send and e-mail message.

  “It's very easy for people to hide behind a computer and I think we get much more aggressive than we would face to face,” she said.

  And the final and most important step to getting the results you want is to stay calm.

  “You won't get anywhere if you get irate.  You lose that person's respect immediately,” said Rogers.

  Branson agrees to a point.  She sent an e-mail message because she tried every other method first.  She got upset because she says being polite got her nowhere. 

  “At that point, I was as nice as I could be,” she said.

  Luckily for her, by that point, she decided taking away business from the store is more important than the $45.   And, by sending the e-mail message to the store and everyone she knows, she might just get the results she wants after all.

  “If it's a bad experience, you tell 10 people.  If it's good, you tell one,” said Rogers.