Handling Customer Complaints

Customer complaints were traditionally viewed as negative.  However the introduction of a customer complaints strategy is a positive move that a growing number of organizations are making.  The objective of this strategy is to truly listen to and understand your customer’s viewpoint.  The way you handle customer complaints plays a major role in customer retention and building customer loyalty.
One area that should be addressed as part of a complaints strategy relates to handling customer complaints.  Here are some best practices:
Aggressively Solicit All Customer Feedback

• Strive to increase the volume of customer feedback.
• Provide multiple contact methods including phone, mail, E-mail and Internet.

Record All Information in a Complaint Handling System

• Use a paper or database system depending on volume.
• Classify customer feedback in meaningful, non-overlapping categories.
• Record important details that can be used to analyze data and implement long term corrective actions.

Investigate and Resolve

• Gather additional information.
• Research similar problems.
• Inform and engage additional departments, individuals or outside agencies.
• Record all action steps.

Communicate the Resolution

• Acknowledge appreciation for ALL feedback, both positive and negative.
• Communicate the immediate resolution (i.e. credit, ship product, etc.).
• When possible, inform customers of the specific actions that are being taken to address the root cause.

Analyze and Improve

• Periodically analyze data for trends in problem types, product codes, manufacturing locations etc.
• Develop corrective and preventive action plans to address systemic problems.
• Congratulate teams when improvements have been made.

Use this outline as a starting point to document your complaint handling systems and procedures. The specific complaint handling procedures in different industries may require different steps. For example, Medical Device manufacturers are required to report some defects to the FDA. Health insurance companies have Medicare and Medicaid complaint handling guidelines to follow.

Contact Lynk Software to discuss how Everest can be used to fulfill your complaint handling system requirements.

.