It is TMI's intention that each one of these examples will increase your personal understanding of how to improve your own complaint handling. 

1. Not setting targets to reduce the number of complaints. Tempting as the "zero defects" concept makes this, complaint-friendly organizations understand that setting goals to reduce complaints mainly encourages staff to cover up bad news from customers. This creates a mindset among staff that customer complaints are negative and senior management doesn't want to hear about them. 

2. Creating a receptive managerial attitude to hear feedback passed up the line. Managers, in particular, must demonstrate they are not afraid of customer feedback. Many good companies insist on managers personally handling floor or telephone complaints from time to time. 

3. Offering specific training in complaint handling. Organizations that are customer-focused, will make sure that their customer service training includes complaint handling. Unfortunately, many customer service courses ignore or simplify complaint handling, the most delicate part of customer service. 

4. Drafting scripts for customer service representatives. Because they don't know what to say, service representatives without scripts tend to hurry through the complaint handling process. Many complaint handling scripts ask service representatives to first tell the customer they are sorry. TMI doesn't think this is the best way to open discussion with complaining customers, but at least it gives the service reps something to say, enabling them to be more composed. 

5. Creating opportunities to discuss complaints in groups. By holding regular discussions about current complaints, organizations make it possible for service representatives to identify and then offer standard solutions to common customer complaints. The 80/20 rule applies here: most complaints are repeated over and over again. 

6. Empowering frontline staff to handle complaints. Complaint-friendly organizations offer clear instructions to staff about how and which complaints are to be handled directly by frontline staff. They also identify complaint situations that need to be bumped up to management. 

7. Not giving away the store when customers complain. Best practices include focusing on emotional handling of complaints, rather than simply giving products, price reductions, or discounts in an attempt to satisfy complaining customers.

8. Instituting processes for complaint management. Complaint-friendly organizations utilize technological processes enabling them to rapidly take information from customers and apply it to quality improvement, market shifts, and meeting customer needs. 

9. Ongoing coaching. Organizations that are really good at complaint handling understand that staff need ongoing help with complaint handling. Call Centers tape record calls with customers, and then use these calls in regular coaching sessions. 

10. Encouraging appropriate descriptions of customers. Organizations that are highly sensitive to the role of customers in their businesses, create a mood of respect for customers by discouraging name calling and disparagement of customers.
 
Janelle M. Barlow, Ph.D.  
Coauthor, A Complaint Is a Gift, Using Customer Feedback as a Strategic Tool 
  

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We invite you to submit your "best" examples by fax or e-mail. We won't print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do.

 

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Training Program  

  A Complaint Is a Gift, The Book  

Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow

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