Handling Complaints

Im on my phone but i can only imagine the responses youll get to this

First rule is to listen to their complaint. To really listen you have to verbally repeat their complaint. As humans we have a habit of creating our rebuttal while the other one is still talking. After you acknowledge and restate their complaint, ask what you can do to make it right. If their request is unreasonable or not within your power, politely offer an alternative. Otherwise negotiate.

Please understand I will not claim to be an expert, but I have 30 years experience as a public servant that dealt with this on a daily basis. In my second career as a scrapper I do not have these situations because the goal is to exceed the clients expectations.

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I would have to agree with a lot of what has been said already. If you need to find a tool for handling complaints, the tool might be better described as a "pink slip" for the area that is causing all these complaints.

Now if your handling complaints for other companies, then use some kind of logging app or program, if you have MS office, then use Access and make a database that would be searchable and log everything about those complaints.

Just without more information, nobody is going to give you an answer that can help you completely. This is all just speculation on my part.

I did not notice in my reading of this thread any specifics about how the complaints occur or if they revolved around one employee. Nor has the originator come back to respond in any way.

So my contribution is aimed to those who are interested in perhaps ways or reasons for complaints.

When I was a Marine Corps Military Police I was stationed in California and was exposed to some of the training given by the California Highway Patrol. They had done a physical study on the patrol officers who had the most complaints called in on them. These were not the type of complaint of physical abuse but more of "the officer made me mad" type of complaint.

The result of the study was those officers who keep their sun glasses on during a traffic stop had far more complaints than those officers who normally removed them. Think of this in your own life do you like talking with a person who is wearing sun glasses, I know I don't.

At a base in Hawaii I was placed in charge of the Military Police Marines who operated the gates. We were having repeated complaints from Marines and others entering the gates at various times. Once I figured out who was the problem I had to figure why. It turned out to be mostly one Marine out of about 25 who stood the gate duty.

That one Marine grew up in one of the boroughs of New York City. It was his habit when speaking with nearly anyone to have his feet spread apart, hands on hips. He also would bob his head up and down in a manner that appeared a "challenging" gesture. In other words if I stood in front of you doing this you would expect us to be in a fight soon.

I showed the Marine what he was doing and why it conveyed a "so do you want to fight now or later" threat. When I did he did not take it that way. Why because that was the way he grew up and how his friends acted with each other.

So if when you get complaints and you want to stay in business take them seriously. Do not assume the customer is wrong, stupid or any thing like that. You don't have to give away the farm but you should examine why the complaint occurred.

I have attempted to live by "Under promise and over deliver". When I was unable to do something as promised I would contact the customer as soon as possible and update them.

Look inward to your organization in a detached manner and find the cause. Occasionally you will get an unreasonable customer/client and that just happens but if complaints are a problem the problem is you. 73, Mike