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The First Known Customer Complaint In History Came From Ancient Mesopotamia
The pursuit of customer satisfaction goes back a long time
Although many may not admit it, people absolutely love to complain. Some of the most common forms of this today is in the form of customer complaints. In person and through online reviews and social media, those who are unhappy after a negative experience with a person or business rarely hold back in letting their thoughts be known. Therefore, it may come as little surprise that the first known customer complaint dates all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia in the form of a clay tablet written by a man disgruntled with some copper that he bought.
The original, as far as we know, written customer complaint originated from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) around 3,800 years ago. Written in Akkadian language, this slight tablet (measuring about 11.6 centimeters high and 2.6 centimeters thick) contained the grievance of a man named Nanni directed to someone named Ea-nasir, who was a member of a merchant’s guild called the Alik Tilmun.
According to Quartz’s Kabir Chibber, A. Leo Oppenheim printed a translation of the missive in his 1967 book, “Letters From Mesopotamia: Official, Business, and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia:”
