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Describe a complaint that you made, and you were satisfied with the result.: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • When it happened?
  • Who you complained to?
  • What did you complain about?
  • Why were you satisfied with the result?
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17 unique answers with expert feedback

Show all 17 answers

Cue 1:When it happened?

  • Mention a specific time frame, such as a recent event or a particular month.
  • Provide context about what was happening in your life at that time.

Example

This incident happened about two months ago when I was traveling to my hometown for a family wedding. I had booked a train ticket through an online platform.

Cue 2:Who you complained to?

  • Clearly state the person or organization you directed your complaint to.
  • Explain how you reached out to them, whether it was through a phone call, email, or in person.

Example

I complained to the customer service team of the online ticket booking platform. I called their helpline number, which I found on their website, and spoke to a representative.

Cue 3:What did you complain about?

  • Describe the issue you faced in detail, ensuring to highlight why it was a problem.
  • Mention any specific details that made the complaint valid.

Example

I complained about the fact that my train was delayed by over three hours, and I had not received any notification about the delay. This was particularly frustrating as I had planned my travel around the wedding schedule.

Cue 4:Why were you satisfied with the result?

  • Explain how the company responded to your complaint and what actions they took.
  • Share your feelings about the resolution and why it met your expectations.

Example

I was satisfied with the result because the customer service representative was very understanding and apologetic. They offered me a full refund for my ticket and also provided me with a discount on my next booking. This made me feel valued as a customer.

Conclusion

    Example

    Overall, this experience taught me the importance of voicing my concerns. It was reassuring to see that companies can take responsibility and make amends, which encourages me to continue using their services in the future.

    Following this structure will ensure you cover all the essential points while providing a clear and engaging response to the cue card topic.

    Tips to answer this Cue Card

    1: Vague Responses

    Providing vague or unclear answers can make it difficult for the examiner to understand your experience. Specific details help create a clearer picture of your complaint.

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    Tip

    Use specific examples and details when describing your complaint, such as the exact issue, the date, and the person you spoke to.

    2: Lack of Structure

    A disorganized response can confuse the listener. It’s important to follow a logical order when answering the cue card prompts.

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    Tip

    Structure your answer by addressing each cue in order: when it happened, who you complained to, what the complaint was, and why you were satisfied.

    Negative Tone

    Focusing too much on negativity can leave a bad impression. It's important to highlight the positive outcome of your complaint.

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    Tip

    Balance your response by briefly mentioning the problem but emphasizing the resolution and your satisfaction with the result.

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    Talk about a toy you liked in your childhood
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    Anonymous student Band 8

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    The toy which I liked in my childhood was a panda doll, which makes me pleasant and makes me more blush. The pandas are the most beautiful creatures of the world, which looks gigantic and has pooshy cheeks and they are like stars in the clouds and they dream in me. Furthermore, these have been given by my father. My father is a very very beautiful artistic person, who makes me think of that. Every day you will face every difficulties and make you suffer and move forward. Pandas are always seen in Japanese countries. It is my lifelong dream to visit a Japanese country and click a photo with the original pandas, which makes sounds better.
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    Anonymous student Band 6.5

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    As India is a very large country full of diversity, so there are many places which have their own language and speak their native language. The place which I visited and I didn't know about their language was Leladakh, which is about 300 km away from my hometown and it is a very good place as it consists of different kind of trees, animals and have many scenic views and I visited over there last year in summers as it was the best time to visit because it has many, it was cold over there and we had summers in our area so it was the best time to visit over there and I went over there with my whole family.
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    When I was a kid, I had a little pencil box which had these four buttons which gave the pencil box an operative use. When you press the button, the box would open up. When you press the second button, a little part of it would slide out. Basically it was just a little electronical and a fun thing to have and I owned it when I was in 6th. One day after break, I was standing and talking there with one of my friends and another friend of mine was running through the hallway and accidentally she pushed my shoulder and my pencil box hit the ground and it broke into multiple pieces to the point that it was not functional anymore.
    Describe a book you recently read
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    Anonymous student Band 7.5

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    It Ends With Us is a book I read recently. It's by the author Colleen Hoare. It's mainly a story about two teenagers, Atlas and Lily, and how they just handle their life going through high school, adolescence, and just domestic violence at home. Both of them come from very, very different families. However, they have one common determining factor between them, which is domestic violence. The abuse that they've seen their moms go through is just insane, and they connect through that on a different level. They're actually in the same high school, but they never speak to each other until Atlas actually crashes into an empty house next to Lily's villa. When Atlas is homeless and he doesn't have anywhere to go, he just comes and breaks into the house next to Lily's, and Lily helps him with all the daily necessities like clothes and food, medicines and stuff. Furthermore, their friendship blossoms into love, but it doesn't really fructify as Atlas has to leave. This book really gave me a lot of knowledge about domestic abuse and how to deal with it.

    All Answers

    Here are all the answers by real-users practicing speaking for IELTS Cue Cards on our IELTS Prep App.

    Band 7

    So, this incident happened to me last month as I live in apartment complex. It is a quite big apartment complex with huge playground attached to it. But in a few days, in the past month, I observed that there was a lot of carpet and rubbish was stashed stack on the side of that garden. It was causing a lot of foul smell and it wasn't looking good overall. So I took the matters in my hand and I complained to the building secretary and I specifically told them about my issue and I asked them when can we expect the clean-up to be done. He reassured me that clean-up is said to be happened on the coming weekend. And it was indeed true as over the weekend, with the help of clean-up crew, they cleared out all the garbage and rubbish and planted beautiful trees over that area. I was quite satisfied with myself cause actually my complaint resulted into something really beautiful and whenever I go to the garden of my building, it smells so good cause flowers are just beautiful and this just smells so good.

    Band 7

    So, this happened somewhere around the middle of last year. I had lodged a sexual harassment complaint against a colleague from the office. So, under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act in India, every office is supposed to have an internal complaints committee to which you can raise your complaints. They are also responsible to ensure that such incidents do not take place at work, and if they do, to take necessary action on the same. So, this person would message me at all times during the night, call me dozens of times, especially when he was intoxicated. In addition to this, he would drop a lot of messages that would be borderline insulting. So, I took it up with the internal complaints committee and I filed a complaint. He was given a censure by the competent authority with which I was quite satisfied. A censure is a sort of high-level reprimand, and once you get one of those, it leaves a black mark on your career history. So, the next time you are up for a promotion or a salary increase, this would also be considered. Moreover, I also wanted to send across a message to other men.

    Band 6-7

    One of the recent complaints I have mailed is a system reboot issue in my working station PC in my office. I was a working professional, worked as an executive in active performance manufacturing industry. Having an experience of nearly 1.5 years, the company is situated in Gomany province. So I have contacted IT person in my company to tell my problem regarding this rebooting issue automatically. Like whenever I turned on my PC after quite few minutes, it automatically turned off. So this was the issue I had faced while working on my system. So my PC is very important to me because all the works I will carry on my PC only. Like I have to do effective documentation and so I use office functions like Excel, Word and some presentation PPT. And I will compile some of the lists and I will schedule some of the meetings. So all those things I will carry out using my PC. So later the IT technician have sorted out the problem. The problem was in the processor where there is a thermal gel have been pasted on the top of the processor. So it can absorb the heat from the processor. So I had issue on the thermal gel which was vaporized. So the IT technician replaced the new thermal gel on the top of the processor. So this was one of the recent complaint I have made in my company.

    Band 6-7

    I'm a person who don't complain even for very little silly things. I'm usually a person who gets adjusted to almost all the things that are around me. But the complaint I recently had was on my hostel mess. I feel that the food is not very good and in addition to that I found some small creatures in my room when I'm in sleep comp there. So after seeing that I felt like my health will be affected for sure if I eat food like this. I thought that an ounce of prevention is better than pound of cure. So I had to go and complain about this for sure to hostel warden. I went to my hostel warden and explained about the issue in a very polite manner. Moreover, she is a very genuine person. She came to my hostel, observed and examined all the things what are going on there in my mess. Regarding that she appointed a good chef who really fit for the purpose. I'm completely satisfied with the result because yes of course the good things take some time and it is not only helpful to me but also my friends.

    Band 6

    so actually this is one of my school incident I remember we were supposed to have like two pigtails on our head when we will arrive to the school but one of the one of my classmates was actually having short hairs or she was suffering from something I don't know specifically about but she has to take chemotherapy and that actually made her lose her hair in quite a huge chunks so she had a very patchy scalp but when she came to school our teacher one of the in charge was supposed to measure like the students were actually in a dress code or school code she stopped her and started criticizing her on her appearance like why are you not have done your braids or not made them and why are you wearing a hat it's not allowed later when we found out we all complained about it to our principal and filled the complaint jar that we had in our school with complaints about it like everyone should be allowed to actually wear hat if they have some kind of problem our principal was very great he addressed it as soon as he received the news and he quickly changed the dress code to whatever the students will need will be comfortable with and there will be criteria for it as well but he literally did a great job and that teacher was also investigated from the school I was actually very happy about it the whole class celebrated it because we don't have to worry about being criticized anymore that teacher was actually a very hellish for us I would say like he was not a good teacher and I appreciate that our principal did what he did

    Band 6

    I have given a complaint in my office on my superior management staff because they were forcing me, not only me, they are forcing my entire team to do the sales for them, they are stating that it is the client's requirement, whereas we were not told about the sales during our hiring process, so we have complained this to the special tool called Amber, which is there in the Genpact Hub, so I have given a written complaint in there and it asked me for the necessary details, like what are the details, what are the things that I am not satisfied in and I have mentioned all the details there and immediately within two days the Amber's specific teams have contacted to my superior management, they have arranged a meeting for both of us and I have taken two or three members of my team and colleagues with me, we had a discussion over there on the topics that I have mentioned and it is obvious that when it is an illegal or unfamiliar activity that is happening in the process, then one should always complain it, so in the same way the issues were identified and highlighted and the superior management were given warning notices that without any proper documented procedure evidence, this process of doing the sales should not be imposed on the employees because it leads to intransparency within the organization, so for which the result was in favor of me, favor for me, so for that I felt very happy and satisfied with the quick...

    Band 6

    In 2024, I ordered 4 shoes from an online website known as Amazon. So when the shoes were delivered, they were quite dirty from the edges of the shoes. So I called the customer care of Amazon and described her the inconvenience caused by them. So she told me that we are really sorry for the inconvenience caused. And she replaced the return and when the delivery boy came to collect the shoes and replace it, he was apologizing for the inconvenience caused by them and I was really amazed by the customer service which they offered to me as well as to the people who order usually from Amazon and the customer service which they gave me was really a thing to be highlighted in my experience and this was the only complaint which I made when I was satisfied with it.

    Band 6

    This incident just happened last week. I had received a complaint from my bank in my hometown saying that I have not completed my KYC. I reached out to the bank manager stating that I have in fact done that. However, their records still did not show that I have completed the procedure. I would get calls in the middle of the day while I am working saying that I need to complete it immediately or my account will be locked. After frantic calls to the bank manager, I found out that I had completed my KYC. It was just a lack on the part of the account manager. He forgot to make a record of me completing the KYC. This led to a lot of confusion and after a long ordeal and reaching out to different bank managers and account managers, I was able to convince them to check their records properly. Thankfully, the issue has now been resolved and I am not getting any more frantic calls from the bank.

    Band 6

    Back then during my college days, I used to stay in hostel. It is a college accommodation. So basically the food provided over there was not really that great. We can clearly sense the low quality food and the food used to not, you know, taste that good and not cooked properly. Many such complaints on food. Like every time we used to have a suggestion box, we just go and drop there all the time like the food is not good. But no one used to read what is put in the suggestion box. No one is really ready to resolve any issue. For namesake, they used to have this suggestion box. So we just saw that for many months we adjusted eating the same food for many months. Later on one day, we were so frustrated and me and few of my other people, we started doing this and later on we got much support from other people in hostel. We went to meet director. But in our college, they will not let any of the students to meet director. So always there is a huge process. We can meet principal directly but not director. But we have already dropped complaints to principal as well and they were not responding. And finally, one day we were able to meet her and we just told her everything like what happened and we just complained on food quality and how it is cooked. So then she took immediate action on that by replacing the menu and the master chef who prepares food for all the students. So I was so happy.

    Band 6

    So, since I live in a village, there are several problems in which government can't get involved. But, once I remember, I complained to Kandinagas, where I live, the city, Kandinagas Municipal Department, because some individuals were intentionally destroying the road which connects to the main city. And they were using water to destroy, whatever water they use in the household shores, they were used to throw at the road, so the road will get destroyed easily, since water destroys road whenever there are breakdowns. So, I complained to Municipal Department and I wrote a letter to the Municipal Corporation Head that these individuals, with their name and address and numbers, that they were destroying public property and transportation property intentionally to give people trouble. So, in six days, Municipal Corporation reached out to those people and told them to stop doing that, otherwise the police will get involved and you'll face some legal troubles. And after two weeks, Municipal Corporation's team came to the road and they built the whole road again. And it was quite satisfactory for me, because first time I saw government working from one report, there were many reports about the same road, that is why they took quick and immediate action.
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