"Yeeeejjjj, we have another complaint!". That's a phrase you don't often hear. A complaint comes from a customer who expected more but got less. Can happen, because where there is a chopping, there are chips. But getting complaints is a bit difficult and often not so much fun.
Disappointment is a personally profound phenomenon. Another person expected more from you and you failed to deliver. You feel that you have failed or that your company or organization has failed. How personal a complaint comes to you depends on your commitment to the organization where you work.
Complaint, complainant, lament....
Around those words hangs a tinge of discontentment and negativity. Happy words like tip (to do something better) or suggestion essentially amount to the same thing but are much more positive. "Yay, we got another tip on how to be even better!" That already sounds different, doesn't it?
A more positive approach
Perhaps we should start with a more positive approach to the phenomenon, which we now call complaint. Someone who complains is taking the trouble to share their dissatisfaction with your company. That fact alone is worth a tremendous amount. It gives you a chance to fix a mistake and preserve the customer relationship. A properly resolved complaint does a lot for the bond with the customer. Much more so than when everything always goes right. So let's look at how to turn a complaint into a strength.
Why every complaint deserves a thank you
For starters, every complainant should receive a thank you. Something along the lines of "We understand that something didn't go right. Thank you for letting us know. This gives us a chance to address your question and improve our product/service. We will address your question immediately."
An organization that wants to improve is open to tips and suggestions from its customers (what we just called complaints). This requires listening, but also acting, because complaints do not usually resolve themselves. And when a complaint is resolved, you want to know whether it was an incident or if there is a deeper cause that needs to be addressed. This is because if you address that cause, you prevent the same complaint from recurring over and over again.
Improvement management does not happen by itself
Improvement management has to be organized, because it doesn't happen by itself. What you need for that is a structure, tools and a little discipline.
Structure is everything that must be conceived and set up before you can speak of structural improvement management. Think of formulating a vision and a policy. Setting up processes and informing the people who deal directly with customers.
Tools can include budget to make repairs or replacements. But also software you can use to analyze and manage improvement suggestions.
Discipline is something that can disappear like snow in the sun when suddenly other priorities seem to be in place. Discipline comes partly from within yourself. It's called intrinsic discipline, and it means that you do something because you want to do it yourself. Frankly, that should be the basis in all cases. Extrinsic discipline comes from someone or a system that reminds you that you have to do something.
One system to turn a complaint into a force
Software can be an excellent extrinsic disciplinarian. Software that analyzes a complaint or suggestion before automatically sending it to the right place or person in the organization to follow up. Software that monitors whether that follow-up is actually happening and politely encourages the appropriate person in charge to take action at the appropriate times. Software that plots how many complaints are received by business unit and what percentage are successfully resolved within what time frame. Software that shows where the cause of the most common derailments lies and even which employees have the largest or smallest share in solving them.
ISO2HANDLE's software is a powerful tool for turning a complaint into a strength. The platform makes real-time performance on every essential KPI clearly visible. In fact, you can use it to do everything you need to manage customer satisfaction holistically.
It ensures that complaints are automatically invested in the organization and effectively monitored. It collects evaluations, experiences and complaints through smart forms that you can easily embed in your website. It includes tools to analyze what went wrong and why it went wrong. And it secures that complaints and improvement suggestions are addressed and resolved.
Want to know more or complaint management through ISO2HANDLE? If so, let's schedule a short, no-obligation, exploratory demo to see what's possible.
