Complaints: A Critical Form of Communication

• Service & Complaints Guides
• A Practical Guide to Handling Consumer Complaints
• Best Practices in Handling Customer Complaints
• A Guide for Consumer Complaints Management
• 6 Steps to Achieve Customer Service Excellence

Complaints are a goldmine of information

Complaints offer businesses an opportunity to correct immediate problems. In addition, they frequently provide constructive ideas for improving products, adapting marketing practices, upgrading services, or modifying promotional material and product information.

While occasional problems with service of merchandise are, to some extent, inevitable, dissatisfied customers are not. Companies can learn to recover from mistakes. A good recovery can turn angry, frustrated customers into loyal ones.

Recognizing the importance of responding fairly and efficiently to buyer disappointment in the marketplace, many businesses have established effective and innovative systems for resolving consumer complaints. Within any industry, those companies with a positive philosophy and a reputation for fair complaint-management have a competitive edge.

A management philosophy that embraces customer satisfaction as a primary goal of business, instead of defending the company in the face of complaints, can change the rules of the game for companies. It shifts the emphasis from the cost of pleasing a customer to the value of doing so, and trusts front-line employees to use their judgment.

British Airways' customer-relations department can claim to be a true champion of the customer. The retention rate among those who complain to customer relations has more than doubled, while its return on investment (the value of business saved plus increased loyalty and new business from referrals relative to the department's total costs) has risen 200%. British Airways employees are never happy to have service failures but are eager to hear about them when they occur because they know that ignorance is anything but bliss.

Table of Contents

• Handling Complaints : A Critical Form of Communications
• Why is Complaint Handling Important?
• Management's Role
• Cost and Savings
• Complaint Handling Staff
• Publicizing the Complaint Management System
• Co-ordination with Others in the Distribution Chain
• Third-party Dispute Resolution
• Basic Steps for Effective Complaint Management
• Conclusion
• Complaint Management Checklist
• Entire Guide

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