Click on image to download MSWord document containing 10 Value Ireland Cards.

Print out the document on regular A4 paper, or preferably if available heavier grade paper.

Cut out individual cards and keep them handy in wallet or purse etc for next time you want to make any comments about a purchasing experience.

 As you complete your meal in a restaurant, or are paying for any product or service in any type of business, complete the relevant boxes on the Value Ireland Card and hand the completed card to the person you are dealing with.

If the person is not a manager or position of authority, ask the person that you give the Value Ireland Card to pass it on to their manager, or to the business owner.

When you return home, log on to www.valueireland.com, go to the relevant area of the Value Ireland Forum, and review your purchasing experience according to how you filled out the Value Ireland Card that you left at the business.

It will allow you make your views known to business owners and managers about the value, quality and service you receive, even if you are too shy to say it personally.

It will raise the awareness of business owners and managers about the feelings of their customers.

By reading reviews of value, quality and service received on their premises on a widely used website, business owners and managers should be encouraged to work to address any issues raised.

No. If you enjoy a good purchasing experience, it is only right that you let the business owners and managers know this as well.

 Also, by posting reviews of good purchasing experiences on the Value Ireland Forum, you will be encouraging other consumers to avail of such good experiences.

By patronising businesses that look after their customers, and neglecting those that don’t provide good value, quality and service,  we the consumer, can influence which business do well, and which businesses will either need to change their ways, or suffer and close down.

We wish to see consumers receiving only the best value, quality and service. To do this, we believe that it is best that consumers complain if they have any problems as soon as the problem arises. The Value Ireland Card is intended as a beginning, to help you get used to complaining.

To see more about how best to make your complaints know to a business owner and manager, please click here to read our “How to complain…” tips and advice page.

Good luck with the idea, I hope people will take it up and get printing!

I'd really like to be able to slip one of these cards in with the bill next time I feel like I'm being asked to bend over by a rip-off merchant! Your card can also be used to indicate a positive experience as well which I think is great.

When someone like me thinks they have been ripped-off, instead of leaving a tip, they could leave a card, and the management could see the comments by checking the website. I'd say this would put an end to a lot of the quality and cost issues out there at the moment!!!

I'd actually be prepared to pay for stickers or business cards with this message on it, that I could leave at the scene of a rip-off, in the hope that I could effectively deliver an appropriate message to the offender!

Personally, I would be more inclined to use it in a good restaurant than a bad and that's purely from politeness. But I would certainly leave one in a place I was happy with, knowing that they'll be only going mad to look up and see what's written about them. So my review would be 90% praise with a little rider that I know for a fact that the owner will see. Like their no-refills policy, a top-heavy wine list or my current pet-hate, the 'OH SO YOU'RE HERE FOR THE EARLY-BIRD, LOOK EVERYONE'. These are all little things that are low cost / effort to change, so they might actually do something about it.