Monitoring of complaints and compliments

As on average, only a small percentage of organisation's customer base actually bothers to complain and fewer people take the trouble to compliment an organisation, the measurement of complaints and compliments is often misleading.

Furthermore, customers' perceptions of an organisation are often based on their dealings with front-liners. These people represent the organisation in the eyes of the customer, and any complaint that customers make are normally directed at this level. It takes a serious incident for the complaint to escalate beyond front-liners. Consequently, it is difficult for senior management to gain a true understanding of customers' concerns as they may have little direct contact. Complaints that organisations do receive are effectively the tip of the iceberg. For every bad experience of service, 1 customer will tend to spread to 10, but these figures are sure to explode with the advent of an increased use of the internet.

Nevertheless, organisations are due consideration to the minority of customers who do contact them directly by instigating an effective system for dealing with both compliments and complaints. Research shows that customers are more to complaint if they want continuing relationship with the service provider. Therefore, it is worth promoting a willingness to hear complaints.

A customer who complains is giving the organisation another opportunity to put things right, and will be fair if treated fairly. A customer who makes a compliment allows an organisation an opportunity to recognise the efforts of the service provider and publish the compliment as n example of good practice.

It is useful to analyse both complaints and compliments in terms of their source, type of complaint or compliment and the frequency with which they occur. It is also useful to track the time it takes to acknowledge a complaint - a speedy response or preferably a telephone call to acknowledge receipt of the complaint is important -  and the amount of time it takes to resolve the complaint.