complaintsrgreat - how to gain when customers complain

Complaintsrgreat Limited in partnership announcement

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:00:43 +0000

Complaintsrgreat are delighted to announce a partnership deal with leading training company, AKD Training Solutions.

Complaintsrgreat will be working with AKD Training Solutions to develop and sell sector-specific versions of their exciting and innovative training product - the Complaints Made Easy™ board game for trainers. Complaintsrgreat's clients can now purchase Complaints Made Easy training sessions or purchase a licence to use Complaints Made Easy™ to support internal training provision.

Michael Hill, managing director at Complaintsrgreat Limited, commented: "Our partnership with AKD Training Solutions provides great benefits for our two specialist companies. Our companies have fantastic reputations for being passionate about complaint management - especially in those sectors where regulations have an impact on complaint handling. Complaintsrgreat's consultancy products have been helping organisations to develop better complaint management processes and systems for many years. And, AKD Training Solutions have been stimulating brilliance in complaint handling with their training programmes and products."

"Now, our partnership with AKD Training Solutions, will allow our clients to stimulate brilliance in their people - the internal participants within the complaint management process. These are the people - whether on the frontline or at senior management level - that can make a real difference and maximise the organisation's potential to build a great reputation and reap the rewards of great complaint management."

Complaintsrgreat will also be selling AKD Training Solutions full range of learning and development solutions - including the Complaint Management Certificate (quality assured and certificated by Strathclyde University).

Complaints Made Easy™ is available now for Healthcare, Government, Housing, Finance and Water industries. Please contact us for more details.

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Using story-telling techniques to liven up your complaints data

Michael Hill — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:08:22 +0000

Earlier this year, I attended a talk by Richard Sedley of Foviance on social media and customer service. Richard gave a very engaging presentation and reminded me of the importance of story telling in engaging with an audience.

Richard outlined the key components for a good story. They are:

passion to make your customers care
a hero to drive the action
an antagonist to challenge the hero
a moment of awareness where the hero realises how to overcome his or her obstacles
transformation wherein the hero accomplishes his or her desired goals

Richard's presentation actually reminded me of a well known brand that used story telling on their Intranet site to communicate the real issues that a family could be experiencing with their products. The company created a cartoon-style family of characters and gave regular updates on how they interacted with the brand and products - including how they benefited each character but were also used to share specific problems that had been encountered - all based on the daily feedback being received by the consumer relations team.

This has led to me giving some further thought to how story telling can be used when communicating complaints data within a business - especially to engage key decision makers and influencers to obtain the resources or commitment to action that can be necessary to deliver change and improve products and services.

A traditional management report that provides information on complaints tends to focus on the statistics. The report might include data about the volume of complaints received, closed, outcomes, handling times and redress. The report is likely to include a range of charts and/or tables of data - together with a text commentary - in an attempt to better engage with the intended audience.

Therefore, a report might begin like this....

"Here is our latest report on the complaints we have received this month.

Product	Cause	Volume	Percentage
Personal loan	General admin and customer service	30	46.9%
Personal loan	Advising, selling and arranging	10	15.6%
Personal loan	Arrears related	5	7.8%
Personal loan	Terms and disputed sums or charges	7	10.9%
Personal loan	Other	3	4.7%
Income protection	General admin and customer service	1	1.6%
Income protection	Advising, selling and arranging	5	7.8%
Income protection	Arrears related	0	0.0%
Income protection	Terms and disputed sums or charges	2	3.1%
Income protection	Other	1	1.6%
Total		55	100.0%

We had 55 complaints (81% of the total) about personal loan products. 30 of these complaints were caused by general admin and customer service issues. This was due to a technical problem which has now been fixed. We also 9 complaints about income protection products but no underlying trends have been identified."

Now, what if we apply the story-telling techniques to this data and commentary. Let's start with the hero of our story...

"Joseph is fifty-five and would like a personal loan. He has carried out some research on the internet and discovered that our personal loan product met his needs."

The antagonist is the potentially faceless business that he is now going to deal with.

"Joseph completed our online application but we needed to some more information from him. We sent him a secure email message but he was unsure about what we needed from him and he replied online with his queries. He waited a week but didn't get a response and phoned us to complain."

Our hero's moment of awareness is that he realises that he can overcome the obstacle - the problem he is experiencing - by getting his complaint heard.

"He told us that he would have applied to get a loan from another firm but we had the best interest rate. He explained that feels we have let him down - he really needs to consolidate his debts and improve his financial circumstances but our delay is causing him anxiety and only adding to his financial woes."

We also gain better insights from this presentation of complaint data. We are also able to share valuable insights such as the customer considering that the product has the best interest rate on the market but also the reasons why customers are wanting the product (to consolidate debts).

Now we can add a twist to our story and bring in the customer relations team who are going to help our hero to overcome the obstacles he is facing. Customer relations will help Joseph to accomplish his goal - to get his loan - but will also expand the story to let the reader know that our hero is not alone and that there are many other heroes just like Joseph who are going to help the antagonist to transform and move forward with our group of heroes so that everyone achieves their goals.

"This month, we heard from thirty other customers experiencing a similar problem to Joseph's. We discovered that a technical problem was preventing customer replies on our application tracker from being alerted to the loans team. We have corrected this problem. We have said "sorry" to all of the affected customers. Joseph has told us that he pleased that we have taken action to address the problem he experienced and we have thanked him for staying with us. We were also pleased to let him know - and hear his delight - when his loan was approved."

We can even add a happier transformation and end to our story.

"This problem has also shown that 15 percent of our loan applicants don't reply to our email messages and fail to complete the application process. Based on this evidence, we would like to trial a new process for the loans team to phone applicants - where we need more information - and clearly explain the information we need and why we need this information. If successful, this would generate between £xx,xxx and £xx,xxxx additional revenue."

Of course, we mustn't forget about the visual impact - so a word cloud, colourful charts and other strong images will add to the impact of the presentation.

Customer complaints provide real insight into the day-to-day experiences of customers and how your business impacts on their lives. Recurring trends should be a call to action for business - but key decision makers will need clearly presented evidence before they are persuaded to act. Story telling can be a very powerful method for making sure the voice of the customer is known and heard within your organisation.

Technology

complaintsrgreat — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:40:28 +0000

Technology solutions

We have two technology partners - Feefo and UsefulFeedback - that allow us to deliver a fantastic range of features at prices that will affordable to the vast majority of organisations. These compimentary solutions will help you to understand customer feedback but also respond more effectively and efficiently - reducing the burden and realising the benefits.

UsefulFeedback - on demand case management

We are pleased to be an implementation partner for the UsefulFeedback! solution.

UsefulFeedback! has been specifically designed for capturing, managing and reporting on complaints and other feedback and enquiries across your entire business. UsefulFeedback! provides a wide range of industry specific configuration templates that enable you to adhere to regulations, improve service levels and enhance the customer experience.

UsefulFeedback! can be deployed either as an on-demand solution (using a public or private cloud platform) or as an on-site installation.

Please contact us to find out more or download the features brochure.

Industry templates

The UsefulFeedback solution allows you get started very quickly by providing a comprehensive range of industry based configuration templates - you select your industry and organisation type (such as "UK Financial services" and "General insurance") and the system will provide you with a starter lists of complaint classifications, root causes, letter templates, email templates, escalation points, target times (where specified by legislation), case contact types, customer types and redress types. Therefore, with a minimum of adjustment you can quickly start handling, resolving and analysing enquiries, complaints and feedback across multiple channels - currently, the system provides integrated support for email, letter, phone and social media!

Access the quick demo

Financial services

UK
Ireland
Isle of Man
Channel Islands
Australia
USA
Cayman Islands
Canada
Germany
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Switzerland
Kuwait
UAE
Hong Kong
Singapore

Download the features for finance brochure (PDF)

Telecoms

UK (CISAS and OTELO schemes)
International

Utilities

UK - Energy
England and Wales - Water
Scotland - Water
International

Government

England
Wales
Scotland
Northern Ireland
International

Travel and transport

Travel agency
Airline
Airport operator
Rail and bus - England
Rail and bus - Wales
Rail and bus - Scotland
Rail and bus - Northern Ireland
Rail and bus - International

Hospitality

Hotels
Restaurants
Venues

Manufacturing

Consumer goods
B2B
Automotive
Food and beverages

Sport and leisure

Sports and leisure clubs
Football club - Premier league
Football club - Football league

Education

Universities - England
Universities - Scotland
Universities - International

Other

Retail
Debt collection
Services - B2B
Media
Pension administration

The system is also designed to support integration with other key systems that might exist across your organisation such as active directory, CRM and ERP systems.

Feefo - ratings and reviews

Feefo is an award winning independent customer feedback system. Feefo adds benefit by generating valuable, genuine customer feedback and reviews on your behalf. Used correctly, Feefo reviews can increase onsite conversion, reduce returns, enhance your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and improve your customer loyalty. Through Feefo your customers can make suggested changes to help your business grow or tell you if you’ve got something wrong so you can instantly put it right and stop it from happening again. Perhaps, most importantly, Feefo provides you with customer reviews, backed up by independence. Something every consumer is searching for online.

What makes feefo unique?

feefo is the only truly independent feedback service with genuine, verified and audited reviews
feefo is the only feedback system that offers instant "match back to actual order"
feefo is the only feedback system to deliver service and product feedback
feefo generates the highest response rates of any feedback system
feefo publishes un-edited feedback instantly
feefo can be integrated into your website in minutes with our unique API

What are the key benefits of using feefo on my website?

feefo delivers consumers genuine trust that they can rely on
feefo significantly increases the conversion from browsers to buyers
feefo significantly reduces returned product rates
feefo brings any service or product issues to your attention immediately
feefo delivers user generated content into your site, which Google loves
feefo turns critics into advocates
Google gives a higher page rank to sites that display feefo feedback
Your team will love the positive feedback that feefo delivers and learn from the negatives
feefo offers the most cost effective Business Intelligence imaginable
feefo allows you to lead the online debate about your site, your service and your products

Please contact us to find out more.

Social media and the need for integrated, multi-channel complaint handling

Michael Hill — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:27:24 +0000

Social media has given business a new channel to evaluate and assess the strategies that will actually be required to deliver effective customer service - even if that assessment decides that the strategy should be simply to not make customer service available on that channel. Traditionally, companies have designed and implemented formal and official processes for capturing and managing customer complaints and feedback. These processes have often attempted to define both the criteria for a complaint to be recorded and the required organisational response (to be followed when a contact meets the defined criteria). However, these processes often focused on those complaints that reached centralised complaint handling functions - the "tip of the iceberg" - the first contact resolutions in many organisations were often separated - and some were more successful than others in stimulating feedback from their customers.

Social media has challenged these traditional processes - on social media channels customers rarely state that they would like to make a formal complaint, they express how their emotions have been affected by a failure or their expectations have been left unmet. Social media is another customer contact channel but with the important characteristic that places engagement within a public arena. Therefore, poorly skilled and unempowered customer service agents will visibly struggle and expose their business to greater risk - but those businesses that do allow skilled and empowered agents to engage with customers will be able to publicly demonstrate their excellence at resolving customer issues and gain customer trust and loyalty to their brands.

The challenge is also to prevent social media channels being used as an escalation point for customers who cannot get satisfaction using traditional channels. Social media needs to be an integrated channel and organisations must make sure that they consistently gets the basics right on any channel that the customers chooses to contact them.

You can download the full report for free here

Resolving customer complaints across social media and traditional channels

complaintsrgreat — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:55:33 +0000

Resolving customer complaints across social media and traditional channels

This free guide will provide you with an overview of the strategic considerations and tactical approaches to handling customer complaints on social media platforms and integrating your strategy across traditional channels.

Submit your details below to download your free guide

Workshop events

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The 2011 Forgiveness Ratings

complaintsrgreat — Tue, 24 May 2011 10:22:34 +0000

The Temkin Group have just published a new report - the 2011 Forgiveness Ratings.

All companies make mistakes, so they need customers to give them a second chance. But companies have built-up considerably different levels of goodwill. This research shows how willing consumers are to forgive 143 US companies.

USAA, Costco, and Amazon.com took the top spots. 6,000 US consumers were asked how likely they were to forgive companies if they made a mistake. This data was then used to rate 143 companies across 12 industries. Only 18 percent of those companies received a "strong" or "very strong" forgiveness rating. The results show that retailers have the highest level of goodwill while credit card issuers and TV service providers have the lowest. While all companies make mistakes, customers are more willing to give Forgiveness Ratings leaders a second chance.

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #7

complaintsrgreat — Thu, 12 May 2011 22:10:09 +0000

Hi everyone

We have missed a few issues because we have been working hard on developing our new sector-based discussion groups on LinkedIn and also making the publishing of our weekly news magazine a little easier. We have also been busy writing some new content and next week we should be able to share with you some of our thoughts on root cause analysis.

Our weekly magazine is now available in an online newspaper format - check out The Complaint Management weekly to read our latest issue.

You can join our discussion groups by using the following links:

Other groups that we are members of and would recommend you to join are:

Best wishes

Michael Hill
complaintsrgreat.com

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #6

complaintsrgreat — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:39:21 +0000

Dear readers

I've had an interesting week that involved some research into Australia's dispute resolution regulations for the finance sector, being interviewed for the Love Your Customer conference, developing a masterclass on complaint management, attending a meeting of the Public Sector Complaints Network to discuss the implications of the proposed Localism Bill for social housing complaint management (and also participating in debates on leasehold complaints, vexatious complainants and partnership complaints - as well as some discussion on the benefits - or not - of using a CRM to manage customer complaints) - and now finally sitting on a train to Southampton to visit British Gas' complaint handling team (winners of the Complaints Team of the Year category at the National Customer Service Awards).

Localism Bill

The proposed Localism Bill provides an interesting insight into regulatroy motivies for complaint handling. In many sectors, we have seem some commonality of approach being taken by regulators - usually, regulated companies are required to issue a final response within 4 weeks (8 weeks if the problem is complex) and regulation will also often require the company to clearly signpost the customer to an industry Ombudsman scheme. The idea is that this regulation places an onus on companies to resolve complaints speedily but to also allow dissatisfied customers to also obtain justice from an Ombudsman where a complaint has been handled unsatisfactorily. Therefore, consumers are more empowered to get problems put right without the need for intervention by regulators.

However, the Localism Bill proposes that social housing customers - tenants and leaseholders of councils, housing associations, housing co-ops etc - should be denied the right to directly access an Ombudsman scheme and be required to take their complaint - after receiving a final response from their landlord - to a local councillor, Member of Parliament or 'tenants panel' who will be given the power to refer a complaint to the Ombudsman. Therefore, direct access to the Ombudsman is being removed by this 'democratic filter'!

Currently, council housing complaints are handled by the Local Government Ombudsman (who requires a final response to be issued within 12 weeks) and other social housing complaints are handled by the Housing Ombudsman Service (who do not impose any time limits and simply require a complainant to complete all stages, usually three or four, before accepting a complaint). The Localism Bill will transfer council housing complaints (except strategic housing services such as homelessness) to the Housing Ombudsman and, currently, will not require any time limits for issuing a final response. The Coalition Government is arguing that all of these changes are being made to promote local resolution - but does not say how... Will we now see if regulators begin to apply filters to complaints to other Ombudsman schemes? Can you imagine the outcry? Yes, it won't happen and this is why I am so dismayed that some of the most vulnerable in society will now have their right to complain to an Ombudsman curtailed - unless they agree to share their personal problem with the landlord with an elected representative or 'tenants panel'. The next meeting of the Public Sector Complaints Network on 20 July 2011 in London will be attended by representatives from both the Local Government Ombudsman and the Housing Ombudsman Service - if you are interested in this, please attend and join the debate.

Cost of complaint handling

I have been asked a few times this week about how to quantify the costs of complaint handling. This can be dependent on how an organisations structures and processes the management of complaints (an exercise we have done for several organisations in the past) but I thought you might all be interested in the below study results from an exercise carried out by the UK's water regulator, OfWAT (this is based on work done previously by the National Audit Office when assessing the cost of complaint handling across three different central government departments.

A base cost of £5 is used for the handling of a telephone complaint (next, we will need to evaluate the cost of social media complaint!). This was derived from a case study of a water company that stated that to deal with the consumer at the first point of contact in the call centre and solve their problem costs between £2 and £8.

A telephone complaint costs £5 to handle.
A written complaint costs £20 to handle (4 x 5).
A second stage written complaint costs £200 to handle (5 x 40).
A case accepted by an ombudsman / adjudicator for investigation costs £900 (5 x 180).
Additional cost for the company to co-operate with ombudsman / adjudicator = £500 (5x100).

Best wishes

Michael Hill
complaintsrgreat.com
Twitter: @crg_ltd
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/complaintsrgreat

Sector-by-sector news round-up

Finance sector news

Public sector news

Utilities sector news

Telecoms sector news

Travel and transport sector news

Legal sector news

Healthcare sector news

Education sector news

Other news

Events

Complaint management discussion groups on LinkedIn

Finance sector news

UK's FOS finds rising trends in complaints about charges where consumers are in a cycle of debt

The Independent
"A common cause of complaint is that charges have snowballed – where the original charge leads to another charge and the consumer finds themselves in a cycle of debt," says Martyn James, a spokesman for the Financial Ombudsman Service. ...

Mutuals protest at FOS 'short cuts'

Money Marketing
AFM chief executive Martin Shaw says the ombudsman is operating outside of the rules. He says: “The FSMA and the FSA rulebook say the ombudsman should give a fair and impartial service arbitrating on complaints. We are seeing some short-cutting of that ...

FSA warning over 'no cost' equity release products

FT Adviser
The FSA said: "But, if it is correct, you will not be covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or be able to take any complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service." He said: "I am delighted that they have addressed our concerns ...

Industry under fire for unclear information on how to resolve complaints about identity theft issues

This is Money
Emma Parker, from the ombudsman service, says: 'Some consumers say they were pressured into buying identity theft insurance or they didn't understand what they were being asked to buy.' Normally, the insurer settles the complaint before the ombudsman ...

DailyFinance
The industry came under fire for using misleading "testimonials and statistics" in its advertising, as well as for unclear disclosures about costs, cancellation and refund policies, and how to resolve complaints with the services ...

NZ Ombudsman discusses the credit card fee shock for Kiwis buying overseas

New Zealand Herald
Ombudsman Deborah Battell said her office had received complaints indicating that paying in kiwi dollars when using credit cards may actually cost travellers or online purchasers more. "Our enquiries have revealed that complainants were likely to be ...

Canada sets new option for investment disputes

Reuters
Investors don't give up the right to pursue arbitration or litigation if they're dissatisfied with a recommendation by the ombudsman. But the ombudsman won't accept complaints that have already gone through arbitration or litigation...

Consumer complaints in US State of Idaho increase over credit repair and debt settlement

IdahoStatesman.com
"If a company promises to erase your bad credit, help you create a new identity or guarantees it can eliminate your debt, hang on to your pocketbook and run," said Gavin Gee, director of the Idaho Department of Finance. Legitimate sources of help are ...

Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) modifies decision descriptions

LGO Link No.9
The LGO have also changed the way they summarise/describe their decisions. The main impact is at a detailed level of their internal data so that it more closely follows the wording in their governing legislation and adds "greater precision". The LGO has said that the published description of their decisions will not change significantly. The term ‘local settlement’ will no longer be used and has been replaced by ‘investigation discontinued – injustice remedied’ or ‘investigation complete, satisfied with authority’s actions, not appropriate to report’.

The decision descriptions that the LGO intend to publish under Part 3 of the Local Government Act are:

Out of jurisdiction
Not to initiate an investigation (formerly Ombudsman’s discretion)
To discontinue investigation injustice remedied (formerly local settlement)
To discontinue investigation (formerly Ombudsman’s discretion)
Investigation complete, satisfied with authority’s actions, not appropriate to issue report
Investigation complete – report issued

This provides a clear distinction between decisions:

not to start an investigation
not to pursue an investigation that has been started, and
when an investigation has been completed.

Manchester Council's failure to pay compensation leads to further report

LGO website
Manchester City Council has refused to pay compensation for injustice caused by its approach to recovering council tax debt through bankruptcy proceedings. Manchester City Council has refused to pay compensation for injustice caused by its approach to recovering council tax debt through bankruptcy proceedings. The original critical report was issued by the previous Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). In her report issued today (6 April 2011), the successor LGO, Dr Jane Martin, calls on the Council to reconsider its position and pay the £1,000 compensation recommended.

Local Government Ombudsman criticises bailiffs' practice of seizing low value items

Creditman
The report concerns a complaint against Slough Borough Council's bailiffs and the Ombudsman has issued it as a matter of public interest, to send a clear message to other councils which may need to review their practices.

MP takes bin charges issue to Ombudsman

This is Somerset
The claim came yesterday as Wells MP Tessa Munt launched a petition to stop the charges and pledged to take up the issue with the Local Government Ombudsman, Somerset County Council and the District Auditor. It comes as new figures emerged showing less ...

Complaints over social workers

Coventry Telegraph
Only 18 per cent of stage one, and 40 per cent of stage two complaints were resolved within the timeframe. But despite the ongoing issues, Warwickshire County Council says it has made many improvements to its social care services.

Merton Council under investigation over Morden Tavern sell-off

This is Local London
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) – England's independent complaints body – will interview Merton Council officers later this month over an agreement to sell the freehold of Morden Tavern pub, Central Road, to a developer. ...

Council pays out in school religion row

Herald Scotland
David Michael, from Great Bernera off the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, accepted the payment from Western Isles Council. It was made after he claimed he was victimised on the grounds of religion in the way officials dealt with his complaint. ...

Complaints against Manx government revealed

Manx Radio
The Health and Social Care departments of the Manx government received a total of 117 complaints in the last five years, the highest number recorded during the period. In a Tynwald question for written reply, Onchan MHK Peter Karran asked how many...

Police reform bill ends accountability

The Guardian
Should any of the campaigners choose to file a complaint about their treatment, the current structure of recording and handling complaints against the police will ensure it is recorded so that grievances can be identified and lessons learned.

US Citizenship and Immigration Service Ombudsman recommends better customer complaint system

ACIP.com
The Ombudsman to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has recommended a new process to handle complaints and comments, called the " Customer ...

Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman opens inquiry to probe police response to detention riots

ABC Online
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The Commonwealth Ombudsman has announced an investigation into the use of force by Australian Federal Police during last month's riots at the Christmas Island detention centre. There have been complaints that two other inquiries, ...

Hong Kong launches phone app that puts inquiries and complaints in palm of your hand

The Standard
When asked how quickly the government will handle complaints or inquiries, the Efficiency Unit said it may be hours or months depending on the nature and urgency of the request. Unit assistant director Yuk Wai-fung said if, for example, a complaint of ...

US water company receives high state rating

Easton Courier
The Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) Consumer Scorecard tallies the number of consumer complaints it receives about a regulated utility over the course of a year. It then generates a score for each utility company using an index of the number of complaints per 100000 customers ...

Fewer outage-related complaints about Nova Scotia Power in Canada

CBC.ca
Nova Scotia Power says the number of outage-related complaints has been decreasing in recent years. (CBC) Nova Scotians are complaining less and less about power outages in recent years, according to survey results presented to the Nova Scotia Utility ...

Utility company improves services

UW Badger Herald
Because of an increase in the use of Internet services through mobile devices and portable technologies, Alliant Energy will allow customers to report power outages and other complaints using their smart phones or the company's website. ...

Complaints against US cable companies fall in 2010

Journal Inquirer
Cable company complaints dropped by 22 percent, and complaints against all telecommunications companies decreased overall by 5 percent, according to the annual Consumer Scorecard just released by the state Department of Public Utility Control...

Optus causes upset by making Australian customers pay to fix its blackspots

Brisbane Times
Australia's second largest telco launched its 3G Home Zone product today, ... He said complaints to the Telecommunications Industy Ombudsman had reached ...

Minister for consumer-friendly telecom policies

The Express Tribune
Addressing a meeting at Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) headquarters, Awan said that the complaint handling system should be made effective and all service providers should make arrangements to address grievances of consumers, ...

Delayed trains could feature in Government data initiative

Telegraph.co.uk
Mr Cullum likened the release of the data to the bank customer complaints data released by the Financial Services Authorities which could allow consumer to buy on customer service levels as well as price. “We could start looking at perceptions that ...

How to spot a fake hotel review

Tnooz
Article by Gilles Granger, founder of travel review website Vinivi. User generated content and hotel reviews have become a mainstay of travel sites in recent years, giving visitors the chance to see what the wisdom of the crowds has ...

Healthcare sector news

Article explaining the role of Chicago's long-term care ombudsman

Chicago Tribune
But when they can't, or a complaint isn't addressed, residents and their families can contact the long-term care ombudsman. The long-term care ombudsman is the resident's advocate. The ombudsman insures that the resident's rights are protected...

Lehigh Regional Hospital has cleaned up act, US state says

The News-Press
The Federal Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also cited the hospital, inspecting patient complaints as well as the medical center's emergency preparation plans. Since the initial inspections in December ...

Putin urges annual rating system for Russia's medical institutions

ITAR-TASS
"It is necessary to begin from state-run healthcare institutions and large private medical organizations,” he said. “I think that the information about the real state of affairs in medical institutions and the results on studying citizens' complaints ...

Poor communication triggers complaints against Brunei's hospitals

Bru Direct
This is done through its core strategy which is a comprehensive healthcare system and stresses excellence in services. Ensuring the welfare and health of the people is the ministry's core business, he said. The new officers should be willing to face ...

US university aims to make it simpler for students to complain

San Jose Mercury News
Yale officials say the committee will begin July 1 and will make it simpler for students and faculty to pursue complaints. The US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights confirmed last week that it is investigating a complaint by students ...

Further stories related to this news:
Daily Mail
Connecticut Law Tribune
Yale Daily News

Complaints force Indian academy school to withdraw good behaviour circular

Times of India
MUMBAI: Finally, it took complaints from parents as well as a show-cause notice from the school education department for Prime Academy (ICSE) School in Andheri to withdraw a controversial circular. On Friday afternoon, the school held a two-hour ...

Insolvency Service practitioners receive the most complaints

Accountancy Age
Currently stakeholders can complain to a practitioners licensing body and then the Insolvency Service. Under the OFT recommendations an independent body will also take complaints. The structure would work similarly to an ombudsman. ...

Tweet your complaint to get a result

The Telegraph
New research by Virgin Media Business reveals that 35pc of organisations in Britain are using social networking sites as part of their external communications, with one in 10 firms now tweeting regularly. But as well as tweeting company news and views, many firms are using Twitter to identify and help disgruntled customers.

Social media and consumer relations

Covent Garden, London - 13 May 2011

This SOCAP in Europe networking event includes a session faciliated by the social media experts, Richard Sedley and Guy Stephens of Foviance. The event is free to SOCAP in Europe members and only £40 (plus VAT) for non-members - fantastic value given the quality of these two speakers. Visit www.socapie.eu for more details.

Complaint handling strategies for effective client recovery

London - 8 - 10 June 2011

The Marcus Evans' 4th annual conference on "Complaint Handling Strategies for Effective Client Recovery" will be held in London from 8 to 10 June 2011. This event has speakers from Sony Ericsson, Home Group, IPCC, Vodafone, Philips, Raiffeisen, Coca Cola, Elisabeth Arden and others but will also include a workshop facilited by myself and Akin Thomas (from our training partners, AKD Training). The workshop will make use of the Complaints Made Easy toolkit to explore tactics for tackling complaints within a multi-channel environment. Contact Sumreen Rizvi, Senior Marketing Manager (Tel: +44 (0) 20 3002 3036 Email: sumreenr@marcusevansuk.com) for more details.

Loving Your Customers

Leeds - 15 June 2011

We are really pleased to be involved with the Loving Your Customers event that is to be held at the Met Hotel in Leeds on 15th June 2011. The great line up includes speakers from Ford, First Direct, Waitrose and LV=. Find out more at http://www.lovingthecustomer.com/.

Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum

London - 29 June 2011

Also in June is the Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum that will be held on the 29 June in London. This event also has a fantastic line-up and includes case studies from BT, Barclays and John Lewis. Find out more at http://www.customerengagementclub.com/multichannel_df_info.

LinkedIn groups

Here is the complete list of the new complaint management groups that we have set-up. Simply, click on the relevant link to request to join a group.

Finance Sector Complaint Management Group

Public Sector Complaints Network

Charities Complaint Management Group

Healthcare Sector Complaint Management Group

Travel and Transport Complaint Management Group

Utilities Sector Complaint Management Group

Education Sector Complaint Management Group

Legal Sector Complaint Management Group

Telecomms Sector Complaint Management Group

Retail Sector Complaint Management Group

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #5

complaintsrgreat — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:29:05 +0000

Hello readers

This week we are going to have a break from sharing the news and provide a focus on some general developments. We've been busily creating new sector-specific discussion groups on LinkedIn and these have now replaced the forums that we previously hosted. Yes, we have shutdown our forums. Why? Well, we just feel that LinkedIn is now the right place for the type of discussions and also delivers much of the same features that we have offered. You can add face-to-face events and run polls. We are also posting sector-specific news to these groups and so they are a great way for you to keep up to date with all the latest news for the sector that interests you. We will be working hard on making the LinkedIn groups a great success and we also hope to use our site to build some benchmarking tools and also - of course - to promote our own services to business!

Events

We are also involved with Marcus Evans' 4th annual conference on "Complaint Handling Strategies for Effective Client Recovery" that is running in London from 8 to 10 June 2011. This event has speakers from Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Philips, Raiffeisen, Coca Cola, Elisabeth Arden and others but will also include a workshop facilitated by myself and Akin Thomas (from our training partners, AKD Training). The workshop will make use of the Complaints Made Easy toolkit to explore tactics for tackling complaints within a multi-channel environment. Contact Sumreen Rizvi, Senior Marketing Manager (Tel: +44 (0) 20 3002 3036 Email: sumreenr@marcusevansuk.com) for more details.

Top 10 tips for managing complaints

This month's Customer Experience magazine included an article by me where I set out my top 10 tips for managing complaints (as opposed to handling complaints). You can read my own version (slightly updated) by clicking here. Please feel free to add your own comments!

LinkedIn groups

Here is the complete list of the new complaint management groups that we have set-up. Simply, click on the relevant link to request to join a group.

Finance Sector Complaint Management Group

Public Sector Complaints Network

Charities Complaint Management Group

Healthcare Sector Complaint Management Group

Travel and Transport Complaint Management Group

Utilities Sector Complaint Management Group

Education Sector Complaint Management Group

Legal Sector Complaint Management Group

Telecomms Sector Complaint Management Group

Retail Sector Complaint Management Group

Top 10 complaint management tips

Michael Hill — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:28:06 +0000

Customers are often delighted if a business simply delivers what has been promised. However, we all know that customers are also increasingly aware of their rights and ready to complain when they perceive that they have received a poor service or experienced a product fault. Customers are judging businesses based on their problem solving skills and more and more companies are finding out that their ability to put things right when they go wrong will impact on their reputation in the marketplace.

The successful resolution of customer complaints is driven by the complaint handling skills and expertise within a company's customer service teams. Much has already been written about how to best handle complaints - such as highlighting the need to actively listen and make a empathetic connection with the customer story. But complaint handling is a tactical environment - what strategies can be deployed to achieve complaint management successes? Here are my top ten 10 tips that will not only allow you to maximise the potential of your complaint management strategy to deliver better services and products but also wow those customers that experience product and service failures and turn them into loyal brand advocates.

Target reductions in dissatisfied customers and detractors

Some companies still consider complaints to be a negative and senior management will often require the implementation of a complaint reduction strategy. Is this the right approach? Maybe, we should focus on maximising the potential for complaint management to reduce customer dissatisfaction and maximise customer advocacy?

A customer who takes the time to complain and is confident that someone will listen and take action is a customer who wants to be loyal. A company with a high level of complaints might be open and responsive to customers rather than having a high level of customer dissatisfaction.

If we develop and set targets for reducing complaints, we might adversely affect internal behaviours within our company - reducing our willingness to listen to customers and simply build a mechanism that handles only the most serious or persistent of complaints.

The complaining customer is often wanting to continue an existing relationship - despite the fact that something is wrong. During early 2010, a survey commissioned by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found that 82 per cent - four out of five people - said their response to poor service would be to tell their friends and family never to use a business and almost a third said they would write a negative review. Some respondents of course commented that - with the increasing use of social media - they would 'Tweet' about a company or set up a Facebook complaints group.

The OFT survey also confirmed the benefits to companies of good service - of the consumers who received good service, 85 per cent said they would recommend that company to their friends and family. One in three said that they would contact the business to thank them - take a look at your compliments, how many of them were prompted by an employee solving a problem or complaint?
Understand customer emotions

A SOCAP Australia study of consumer emotions found that "on the whole, failing to meet expectations does much more harm than exceeding expectations does good." The study discovered that customers who complained to an organisation and were completely satisfied with the response experienced emotions such as feeling reassured, relieved, grateful and impressed. Their satisfaction and loyalty was restored to the levels of customers who had not experienced a problem but those who had a less than satisfactory experience of making a complaint experienced emotions such as feeling exasperated, insulted, disgusted, cheated and angry. The study concluded that organisations would be unlikely to be able to restore a relationship with these customers.

What emotions do your customers display when problems are experienced? Are you insulting them? Or, are you reassuring and impressing your customers?
Don't forget we still don't like to complain.. formally!

Many customers still cannot be bothered to complain and most are reluctant to use a formal or official process. I rarely complain about problems about trains any more - I can't complain on the spot and the process is just too laborious when the expectation is that the complaint will make no or little difference to the service received. A survey of people who had used National Health Service (NHS) and social care services in the past three years found that around 14 per cent were in some way dissatisfied with their experience. Of these, only five per cent of people who were dissatisfied about the NHS went on to make a formal complaint (compared to one third who made a formal complaint about adult social care services). The main reason people did not complain formally was that they did not feel anything would be done as a result.

The complaint handling process should not only be quick and simple to use but also effective...
Get it right first time

Of course, some companies do not sufficiently empower front-line employees to resolve complaints - they may only be able to offer a limited apology and re-issue a product or provide a replacement service or rearranged appointment. If our employees have limited authority to resolve complaints, we may be exposed to increases in repeat contacts (customers call again to attempt to re-state the complaint), written complaints (customers try another channel to attempt to voice the complaint) and/or customer churn and apathy.

Employees also want simple and effective complaint handling processes - complexity simply creates a negative experience for both customer and employee. But employees also want to be given the authority to sort out customer problems - solving problems is rewarding and, hey, its also fun!
Reduce escalation rates

Complaints escalated to managers in a company, solicitors, consumer bodies or even to a sector Ombudsman are time consuming, costly and often less than constructive. A customer's escalation of a complaint is often caused by a less than ‘open’ reaction lower down the company and earlier in the process.

Many customers who are dissatisfied with the handling of an initial complaint choose to give up rather than take the complaint further. But how many of these will also switch provider or reduce their spend with the company? How many had expectations that could have been met by the company concerned?
A positive culture

A positive organisational culture empowers employees to resolve customer problems rather than experience daily stress in dealing with customer anger and frustration. Employees experiencing regular stress will be more likely to become absent from work, experience poor health and leave the organisation - negatively impacting on the company's financial performance. Companies need to recognise the importance of - and provide adequate resources to - employees that are trained, given processes that are easy to use and empowered to take actions to promptly resolve complaints.

Some companies have taken this a step further by empowering front-line employees to report, for example, problematic processes even where the customer did not express any dissatisfaction (but caused frustration maybe to the employee because the process required to deal with the customer could be improved upon).
Invite customers to complain...

Company executives can be nervous about enhancing the visibility of a complaint process. The common view is that promoting and publicising a complaint process only serves to generate more problems to be dealt with rather than recognising that complaints are naturally limited to the volume of problems experienced and reported by customers. However, if a customer experiences difficulties in finding out how to complain - frustration increases and the potential to put things right first time decreases.
Trust us...

What better way to demonstrate that customers can trust our business than by sorting out problems? We should be able to use complaint handling to show that we are honest, we tell the truth, we are open about what we do, we are responsive and able to honour our promises. Our complaint management strategy should reflect the values of our company and the brands that we promote.
Learn from what that customer just told you!

The complaint that is handled promptly on the front-line by giving an apology and a simple remedy does not often generate learning unless the handler is given sufficient time, after giving a response to the customer, to assess and understand the root cause of the problem and to share potential learning with colleagues. However, if a complaint is complex or unable to be resolved promptly on the front-line and an investigation needs to be carried out, the potential for identifying learning based on consideration of the issues raised in the the complaint will increase.
...and what is the cause of that recurring problem?

The potential for learning often improves as the amount of data available increases. Analysis of low-volume, unresolved and escalated issues may provide limited value to organisational learning but analysis of high-volume issues handled at the front-line - where less time is available to assess and evaluate the root causes and initiate corrective actions - should bring greater benefit in helping us to understand the common causes of customer problems and complaints. Senior management also need to be made aware of recurring issues - a great chance for them to visibly get involved and deliver improvements in response to customer feedback.

Good complaint management alone isn't going to make a failing business great but it should allow any business to fix broken relationships and do things better and smarter. The retention of customers increases revenue and profitability - delivering customers who may be happy to buy more and pay more, providing long term and sustainable revenue streams.

complaintsrgreat - how to gain when customers complain

Complaintsrgreat Limited in partnership announcement

Using story-telling techniques to liven up your complaints data

Technology

Industry templates

Financial services

Telecoms

Utilities

Government

Travel and transport

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Manufacturing

Sport and leisure

Education

Other

What makes feefo unique?

What are the key benefits of using feefo on my website?

Social media and the need for integrated, multi-channel complaint handling

Resolving customer complaints across social media and traditional channels

Resolving customer complaints across social media and traditional channels

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The 2011 Forgiveness Ratings

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #7

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #6

Localism Bill

Cost of complaint handling

Sector-by-sector news round-up

Finance sector news

UK's FOS finds rising trends in complaints about charges where consumers are in a cycle of debt

Mutuals protest at FOS 'short cuts'

FSA warning over 'no cost' equity release products

Industry under fire for unclear information on how to resolve complaints about identity theft issues

NZ Ombudsman discusses the credit card fee shock for Kiwis buying overseas

Canada sets new option for investment disputes

Consumer complaints in US State of Idaho increase over credit repair and debt settlement

Public sector news

Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) modifies decision descriptions

Manchester Council's failure to pay compensation leads to further report

Local Government Ombudsman criticises bailiffs' practice of seizing low value items

MP takes bin charges issue to Ombudsman

Complaints over social workers

Merton Council under investigation over Morden Tavern sell-off

Council pays out in school religion row

Complaints against Manx government revealed

Police reform bill ends accountability

US Citizenship and Immigration Service Ombudsman recommends better customer complaint system

Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman opens inquiry to probe police response to detention riots

Hong Kong launches phone app that puts inquiries and complaints in palm of your hand

Utilities sector news

US water company receives high state rating

Fewer outage-related complaints about Nova Scotia Power in Canada

Utility company improves services

Telecoms sector news

Complaints against US cable companies fall in 2010

Optus causes upset by making Australian customers pay to fix its blackspots

Minister for consumer-friendly telecom policies

Travel and Transport sector news

Delayed trains could feature in Government data initiative

How to spot a fake hotel review

Legal sector news

Healthcare sector news

Article explaining the role of Chicago's long-term care ombudsman

Lehigh Regional Hospital has cleaned up act, US state says

Putin urges annual rating system for Russia's medical institutions

Poor communication triggers complaints against Brunei's hospitals

Education sector news

US university aims to make it simpler for students to complain

Complaints force Indian academy school to withdraw good behaviour circular

Other news

Insolvency Service practitioners receive the most complaints

Tweet your complaint to get a result

Events

Social media and consumer relations

Complaint handling strategies for effective client recovery

Loving Your Customers

Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum

LinkedIn groups

The complaintsrgreat.com weekly magazine - issue #5

Top 10 complaint management tips

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