Managing complaints

Research suggests that if someone gets poor service or buys a product that doesn’t deliver on its promise, they’ll tell up to ten people about their bad experience. This form of word-of-mouth publicity needs to be avoided at all costs because it’s highly influential and can be very difficult to fix later.

While complaints are often regarded negatively, they’re actually a powerful form of feedback about what your customers want and why they’re not happy. Having an effective complaints management system in place will enable you to capture valuable information about your product or service from customers, resolve disputes and adjust policies and processes accordingly.

A word of warning, if you do actively encourage your customers to tell you how you can do better, make sure that you are prepared to listen. If you mismanage their expectations about your complaints process, it can exacerbate an already delicate situation.

Tips for dealing with complaints

·        Take all complaints seriously and spend enough time with the customer to understand exactly what the problem is.

·        Try to walk in your customer’s shoes and see the problem from their perspective.

·        Avoid moving straight to problem solving mode, give the customer enough opportunity to express their dissatisfaction.

·        Keep a record of all verbal and written complaints. (What happened? Who was involved? When and where did it happen? What resolution was requested by the complainant? Action taken? What was the outcome?)

·        Verbal complaints should be documented immediately by the staff member who received the complaint.

·        Complaints should be dealt with promptly and in accordance with their urgency.

Resolving complaints

If a written complaint is received, an acknowledgement letter or phone call should be sent or made within five days. Include information about the investigation process, what changes are being made as a result of the complaint, reasons for any decisions made, an apology where appropriate, direct contact information and an acknowledgement of thanks to the complainant for their feedback.

If the complaint can’t be resolved within five days, let the complainant know of any delay either in writing or by telephone.

An effective complaints management policy should ensure that you and your staff can deal with complaints quickly, confidently and professionally – and importantly, without criticism or defensiveness.

In the event that a complaint is made against an employee, it’s important that the complaints management process is fair to both the complainant and the person against whom the complaint is made.