What is Customer Complaint?

$✓$ A customer complaint in any communication a customer has with a company in which ‘displeasure’ is expressed.

$✓$ A customer complaint may be defined as an expression of dissatisfaction with a product/service, either orally or in writing, from an internal or external customer.

$✓$ A customer may have a genuine cause for complaint, although some complaints may be made as a result of a misunderstanding or an unreasonable expectation of a product or service.

$✓$ How a customer complaint is handled will affect the overall level of customer satisfaction and may affect long-term customer loyalty. Thus it is important for enterprises to have clear procedures for dealing rapidly with any customer complaints.

From many statistical analysis of customer satisfaction, the following conclusions were made:

A totally satisfied customer contributes 2.6 times as much revenue to a company as a somewhat satisfied customer.
A totally satisfied customer contributes 17 times as much revenue as a somewhat dissatisfied customer.
A totally dissatisfied customer decreases revenue at a rate equal to 1.8 times of what a totally satisfied customer contributes to business.

Thus the number of dissatisfied customers should be reduced as much as possible. In order to do so, customer feedback must be continuously solicited and monitored.

Why is Customer Feedback/Customer Complaint Necessary?

Customer feedback or customer complaint is required:

To discover customer dissatisfaction,
To identify customer’s needs,
To discover relative priorities of quality,
To compare performance with the competition, and
To determine opportunities, for improvement.

Sources for Customer Complaint

Customer complaints are mainly either related to product itself or related to after-sales-service. Some of the sources of customer complaints are listed below.

1.Customer Complaints Related to Product Itself

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Product is defective/non-functioning

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Product is unreliable

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Product did not meet the basic requirements

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Customer expectation was higher than what the product could deliver

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Frequent breakdown of product

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Product has defective parts

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Product provided with defective accessories

2. Customer Complaints Related to After-Sales-Service

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Service department responding to the problem

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Speed of response to a complaint call

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Basic behaviour and courteousness of the service personnel

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Competence of the service personnel

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Product complaint not resolved even after repairs

The understanding of these potential sources for customer complaint is essential for building the complaint redressal strategy.

Common Customer Feedback Collection Tools
(Tools Used for Collecting Customer Complaints)

Various tools used for collecting customer feedback/customer complaint include:

Comment cards
Customer questionnaire (online, phone and mail surveys)
Post-transaction surveys
Report (or feedback) cards
Focus groups
Social media
Toll-free telephone numbers
Customer visits
Employee feedback

1.Comment Cards

$✓$ Comment cards are physical, paper cards or forms with one or more survey questions designed to gather customer feedback at the point of an in-person service interaction. These are typically filled out by customers immediately after an interaction and left with someone in the organization.

$✓$ Comment cards are normally attached, to the warranty card, issued with the product at the time of sales.

$✓$ Comment cards can give feedback on a specific customer experience, or provide general feedback about the agency.

$✓$ In addition, comment cards can elicit feedback from customers who do not feel comfortable sharing feedback directly with a representative.

2. Customer Questionnaire (Online, Phone and Mail Surveys)

$✓$ A customer questionnaire, also known as a survey, is a more effective and also a popular tool for obtaining opinions and perceptions about an organisation and its products and services.

$✓$ Surveys include:

(a) Surveys through mail, or

(b) Surveys through E-mail, or

$✓$ Surveys, particularly online, phone and mail surveys, are among the most frequently used methods for collecting customer feedback (although mail surveys are declining in popularity).

$✓$ Common types of online surveys include:

Email-survey is emailed to customers, either as a link to a web-based survey, or questions are included in the body of the email. Often used as a post-transaction survey, as well as for broader customer feedback collection.
Pop-up-“pops up” with a request for feedback after a visitor has landed on company website.
Website-a link on company website to a survey, often used to gather feedback on a website or web-based interaction.

$✓$ Email surveys are useful for collecting feedback after an online customer service interaction such as an e-mail or chat; after a website visit; or for proactively reaching out for customer feedback. While email surveys are often used to collect feedback after an in-person or telephone interaction, it is a good idea to collect feedback through the same channel as the initial interaction.

$✓$ Pop-up or website surveys are useful for collecting feedback after a customer has visited company website, or for collecting feedback from customers for whom one do not have contact information.

3. Post-Transaction Surveys

$✓$ Post-transaction surveys are conducted immediately after a customer service interaction, and usually provide feedback directly on that interaction. They are particularly useful for establishing customer service performance goals or benchmarks, and setting standards around service delivery.

$✓$ They are surveys conducted immediately after a customer has called in and interacted with the agency, but before the customer has hung up. Post-call surveys can also be conducted via an outbound call after a phone interaction, or through an e-mail survey.

$✓$ Post-transaction surveys are particularly useful if the agency has a call center, or has significant interaction with customers over the phone. The feedback collected by this type of survey can provide insight about specific transactions, as well as the overall customer experience. In addition, one can avoid the difficulty and expense of proactively reaching out to the customer again.

4. Report (or Feedback) Cards

$✓$ Report cards are nothing but feedback cards. Report cards, like comment cards, are physical, paper cards or forms with one or more survey questions designed to collect customer feedback.

$✓$ Report cards, unlike comment cards, are usually sent to each customer on a quarterly basis.

$✓$ Report cards gather customer’s opinion on the product and also ask for any improvement necessary on the product or service of the organisation.

5. Focus Groups

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Focus groups are moderated, small-group discussions where a pre-selected group of individual (often customers, or potential customers) provide insight into their preferences, attitudes, and opinions about products or services.

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This feedback provides insight into customer opinions on both existing and potential new services, and can also be used to add more color and insight into feedback collected through other methods.

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Focus groups can be held in-person or over the telephone, and some organizations leverage customer panels (standing panels of customers who have opted-in to provide feedback on an ongoing basis) to identify focus group participants.

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Focus groups provide more detailed and nuanced feedback than surveys, and are particularly helpful for capturing general preferences, attitudes and opinions, testing agency assumptions, and collecting responses to current or future offerings. Focus groups are also useful for collecting feedback from individuals who are not currently customers.

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Focus group feedback can give the company a better understanding of customer perceptions and opinions, provide more information about known problem areas, and help to gather responses to new products or services. In addition, focus groups can be used to uncover problem areas or to investigate a problem in more detail.

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Social media, such as social networks, online communities, blogs, forums or discussions boards, can be used to collect customer feedback. Systematically collecting and acting upon customer feedback from social media is still fairly new, but this can be an inexpensive means of listening to customers.

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Systematically collecting and acting upon customer feedback from social media is still fairly new, but this can be an inexpensive means of listening to customers.

7. Toll-Free Telephone Numbers

$✓$ Toll-free telephone numbers are an effective tool for receiving customer feedback/complaint.

$✓$ Toll-free telephone numbers provide the opportunity to the organisations to respond quickly and more cheaply to the customers’ complaints.

8.Customer Visits

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Visits to customer’s place of business is an another technique for gathering information and feedback of the product.

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Customer visits by senior executives along with operating personnel will greatly help in monitoring their product’s performance when it is used and in identifying any specific or reoccurring problems.

9. Employee Feedback

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In addition to the customers’ feedback, the employee feedback is also a potential source of information.

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Since employees can offer insight into conditions that inhibit service quality in the organisation, their feedback are also crucial for customer complaint redressal.

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Also employee feedback will provide valuable insights into their motivational level, their moral, etc.

Customer Complaints Flow Chart

Though the flow chart is simple and self-instructive, the following are the some features of this flow chart.

Complaints can be collected from all sources viz., letters, phone calls, meetings, and verbal inputs.
Data should be collected via a Customer Complaint and Feedback (CC&F) form and a formal Corrective Action Request (CAR) form may be used.
Complaints must be resolved as quickly as possible and customer must be contacted and informed.
All customers should be given a response within 15 days. The response may be a simple ‘thank you’ or a solution for a complaint.
All the local issues should be resolved locally, preferably on the complaint site.
Issues beyond the control of the local entity must be resolved at the central coordinator or analyst level who will further analyse the issue and propose a solution.