Complainer Trainer

Alex Green. (2020, October 27). Crop ethnic female consultant talking to client and taking notes [Photograph]. Pexels. https://images.pexels.com/photos/5699482/pexels-photo-5699482.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&w=1260&h=750&dpr=1

What is complaint management?

The term complaint management describes the handling of customer complaints within a company. Criticism is supposed to be evaluated in a way that is systematic and orderly, and used to create a positive impact. It is also supposed to resolve the issue that prompted the customer’s criticism. The goal of complaint management is to strengthen customer loyalty as well as quality assurance.

Ionos. (2019a, May 21). Complaint management. IONOS Startupguide. https://www.ionos.com/startupguide/grow-your-business/complaint-management/

What are the objectives of complaint management?

While the objectives of complaint management can vary from business to business, the basis of the complaint management process is conducive to achieving two goals: (Ionos, 2019a)

• Customer satisfaction: Complaint management is supposed to reduce customer dissatisfaction and ideally even strengthen customer loyalty.

• Quality assurance: Through complaint management, customer feedback reaches the right departments and contributes to the improvement of the product or service.

Complaint Management procedures

For the complaint management task to be successfull, a framework has to be implemented. This framework needs a organizational structure, apropriatelly trained personnel and a functioning infrastructure. Once these requirements are met, the complaint management process can begin.

In the complaint management process, a complaint passes through various stations. So that the customer can submit a complaint in the first place, your company should set up simple options for providing feedback. Companies should always explicitly indicate such options. In this way, customers are encouraged to give feedback. After the complaint is done, the complaint management process splits into Direct and Indirect processes. (Ionos, 2019a)

Direct complaint management process

Firstly, the complaint is processed. Here, friendliness and understanding on the part of the trained employee play a major role. Ensure that your customers also learn what actions will be taken after their criticism. When possible, the customer should be able to understand what sort of consequences their criticism will have. Sometimes, however, ongoing communication regarding a specific matter is not economically feasible. For this reason, business professionals must weigh what type of response still makes sense at that point and what would exceed a reasonable response.

The next step is to handle the customer’s complaint. This also includes forwarding it to the appropriate department. Knowing that their feedback was accepted with appreciation and will lead to a change is already enough for many customers. Others, however, require further action to be satisfied. For this, your support employees must have the appropriate resources available. In this step the employee thus responds directly to the customer and offers a discount, product exchange, repairs or some other perk.

(Ionos, 2019a)

Indirect complaint management process

At the same time as the direct complaint management is happening, the internal tasks begin. The inbound complaint is analyzed and categorized, and in this way delivers information on what must be changed within the company. Both the auditing and reporting tasks then follow, i.e. the complaint management process itself is reviewed. At the same time, efficiency is also assessed: Is customer satisfaction adequately represented by the inbound complaint? In this context, one solution may be to encourage complaint stimulation.

The information from the audit is prepared and presented to company executives or other decision-makers. Next, this branch of complaint management also deals with execution. The collected and prepared data must be made use of in order to improve quality management. This could be details that only concern a small production stage and can be expeditiously implemented. In the long-term, however, it is possible to initiate structural changes that have an impact on the entire company.

(Ionos, 2019a)

So, in conclusion...

There are many ways to handle complaint management in a business. What we presented was one possible method of handling it. But while the process may vary between businesses or even industries, one thing is certain. The fundamental objective of complaint management should stay the same, to help you improve your business.

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References

Alex Green. (2020, October 27). Crop ethnic female consultant talking to client and taking notes [Photograph]. Pexels. https://images.pexels.com/photos/5699482/pexels-photo-5699482.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&w=1260&h=750&dpr=1

Ionos. (2019a, May 21). Complaint management. IONOS Startupguide. https://www.ionos.com/startupguide/grow-your-business/complaint-management/

Ionos. (2019b, May 21). Complaint management procedures can be divided into two groups: direct and indirect procedures. [Graph]. Ionos. https://www.ionos.com/startupguide/fileadmin/StartupGuide/Screenshots_2019/beschwerdemanagement-EN-1.png

Qualtrax. (2021, September 24). Strategies for Complaint Management [Graph]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/r_JlvJTpRjc?t=1155

Supplementary Materials

Exercises