Handle customer complaints
Overview
This standard is part of the customer service competence area related to Handling Problems, Queries and Complaints. It includes handling customer complaints. It covers the behaviours, processes and approaches that are most effective when handling customer service problems. Remember that customers include everyone to whom you provide products and services. They may be external to your organisation or they may be internal customers.
Customer complaints may be unjustified, but you need to respond to them and offer a resolution or compensation to meet your customers' expectations. You investigate complaints and the different options for their resolution. Your organisation has formal procedures for dealing with complaints and you follow these. You also handle complaints referred to you by front-line staff or supervisors, because they have implications for your organisation due to their severity, or because the customer will only accept the solution when it is dealt with at a senior level. You have the authority and influence to adapt existing policies and procedures to find an acceptable solution. You also analyse variety of complaints over time to allow adaptation of services, functions, work processes and training to avoid repeat complaints. Some elements of handling the complaints may not be carried out to final stage by the practitioners and would require escalation to a specialist.
This standard is for customer service professionals who handle customer complaints.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- identify signs that customers are is becoming dissatisfied with the customer service of your organisation
- prevent queries or problems becoming a complaint
- confirm that you understand the nature and details customer complaints
- investigate the facts of complaints to establish whether they are justified or unjustified
- identify possible options to solve complaints
- consider the advantages and disadvantages of each option for your customer and for your organisation
- assess the risks to your organisation of choosing each option
- report the findings of your investigation to your customer and offer your chosen solution
- escalate the complaint by involving more senior colleagues or an independent third party when required
- give feedback to colleagues involved to avoid future similar complaints
- record how the complaint has been handled to avoid later misunderstandings
- collect all the available information on the nature of complaints that are referred to you
- analyse the organisational implications of the referred complaint
- take personal responsibility for dealing with the referred complaint within the limits of your authority
- keep customers informed about what steps are being taken to deal with their complaint
- follow the procedures to escalate the complaint even higher if customers request this, or if the complaint has wider implications for your organisation
- escalate unresolved complaints to a specialist, where required
- identify a range of possible solutions that balance customer expectations and your organisation's services and products
- liaise with your customer and colleagues to negotiate an acceptable solution
- agree a solution that adapts current policies and procedures within your own authority and furthers your organisation's aims and objectives
- implement the agreed solution and check that customers are satisfied with the action that has been taken
- analyse customer complaints throughout period of time to identify adaptations to services, working processes or training that may be required
- identify potential changes to customer service policies and procedures to reduce complaints
- consider the advantages and disadvantages of each potential change in terms of balancing customer service and organisational aims
- recommend changes to organisational policies and procedures to decision makers
- follow the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- your organisation's complaints procedures and the limits of your authority
- why dealing with complaints is a fundamental part of delivering customer service
- how to spot and interpret signals that customers may be considering making a complaint
- the techniques you can use to handle conflicts with customers
- the importance of dealing with complaints within your organisation's agreed timescale
- why the offer of compensation or replacement service or products is not always the best option for resolving a complaint
- how the successful handling of a complaint presents an opportunity to impress a customer who has been dissatisfied
- the most effective forms of response when complaints are submitted through different channels such as social media
- the importance of minimising customer complaints and dealing with them as they occur
- how to negotiate a solution with customers that is acceptable to them and your organisation
- the regulatory definition of a complaint in your sector and the requirements of how complaints should be handled and reported
- when and how to escalate a complaint to more senior members of your organisation or an independent third party
- the cost and regulatory implications of admitting liability for an error made by your organisation
- the procedures systems used to escalate complaints in your organisation
- the importance of monitoring the level and pattern of complaints to identify those that should provoke a review of customer service delivery
- the types of complaints that can have wider implications for your organisation
- why it is important to communicate with your customer at all stages of a complaint's procedure
- the specialist support that may be required for resolution of a complaint
- how to devise solutions that balance customer expectations and organisational aims
- why and when it may be necessary to adapt organisational policies and procedures to provide a solution acceptable to your customer and how to justify this
- the analysis of customer complaints to identify required changes in functions, working processes or policies
- how to identify any training as a result of complaints' analysis
- how to explore the implications of the patterns and trends for your organisation's policies and procedures
- how to recommend changes to organisational policies and procedures and the decision makers involved
- the advantages and disadvantages of using different forms of response when complaints have originated through different channels such as social media
- the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out