STEPHEN LEWIS meets a woman who is used to taking complaints on the chin

IF YOU thought the British were a nation who never complained, Debbie Hurworth would soon be able to put you right. The 42-year-old customer services manager with York department store Browns is the woman with the unenviable job of handling customer complaints. And do they ever try it on!

The most common wheeze is people who bring back items of clothing, saying they've had them a year but only worn them once.

"You can tell, if it is a garment, that they have not just worn it once," Debbie laughs. "I've been in customer service for.... I don't know how long, and we do know when we're having our leg lifted."

The key to dealing with customer complaints, Debbie says - whether they are legitimate or not - is to remain calm, defuse the situation, and make sure the customer knows they are being listened to and their complaint is being taken seriously.

Her skills as a diplomat and problem solver will be on show to the nation tomorrow, when she features in the latest episode of the BBC1 docusoap, Get Me The Manager.

A BBC crew spent a week last summer following Debbie around as she dealt with a number of oddball customer complaints.

These ranged from a woman who wanted her new bed delivered at 7pm and wouldn't take no for an answer, to a woman complaining that the bathroom carpet she had received wasn't the one she had ordered. Debbie and the store's carpet manager Steve Smith visited her home to sort out the complaint. "She was adamant she had got a different quality and colour carpet," Debbie says. "She hadn't at all. She was just very upset about it and ended up sitting on the toilet seat."

Other complaints Debbie tackled during the week of filming included a woman who brought back a bra she'd had for two years ("we said no"), a woman complaining about holes in her stockings, and a man who said his cardigan had gone bobbly and wanted it replacing. He seemed quite happy when Debbie visited him at home, told him all he needed was to have it washed and pressed, and arranged for that to be done - happy, that was, until he talked to his wife.

"Then he came running down the street after me saying 'my wife wants to have a chat with you about it'," Debbie laughs. The store ended up giving him a new one - and giving him his old one back as well.