Complaint Management Excellence

Transcription

1 COMPLAINT MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE Complaint Management Excellence Creating customer loyalty through service recovery Sarah Cook KoganPage LONDON PHILADELPHIA NEW DELHI

2 CONTENTS List of figures and tables xi Preface xiii About the author xv 01 Complaints as opportunities 1 Increasing customer expectations 1 The power of the customer 3 Social media 4 Delivering excellent service 5 Levels of customer satisfaction 6 Customer complaints 8 What is a complaint? 9 Customer dissatisfaction 10 The risks involved in poor complaint handling 13 The positive power of effective complaint handling 14 The business case for excellent complaint handling 17 Key learning points 19 Rate your organization's approach to complaint handling Encouraging dissatisfied customers to voice their complaints 21 Encouraging complaints 21 Why customers do not complain 22 Ways to encourage people to complain 24 Making best use of social media 28 Double deviation 31 The regulatory environment 33 Complaints standards bodies 34 Key learning points 35 Rate how well your organization encourages customers who are dissatisfied to complain 36

3 03 What people look for when they complain 37 What is important to customers when they complain? 37 Fast resolutions to complaints 38 Call the customer 39 Single deviation 40 Taking complaints seriously 40 The emotional and economic cost of complaints 41 Empathy and apology 42 Meeting expectations 42 What makes best-in-class complaint handling? 44 What about money? 45 What to consider when offering redress 45 Types of financial and non-financial redress 46 Gestures of goodwill 48 Service guarantees 49 Key learning points 50 Customer complaint-handling checklist Customer-management strategy and its implementation 53 Setting a strategy for your complaint management 53 Link to organizational vision and values 54 Hard and soft elements of a complaint-management strategy 56 Complaint-management policy and standards 56 Complaint-handling processes and procedures 58 Complaint-handling system 59 The people side 61 Recruitment 61 Induction 62 Training and competence 63 Empowerment 65 Measurement 68 Learning and improvement 69 Key learning points 70 Seven Ss assessment 70

4 05 Communication styles and emotional intelligence 73 Ways people choose to complain 73 How complaint handlers choose to respond 75 Emotional intelligence 76 Key learning points The skills and behaviours needed for dealing effectively with complaints 85 Imagine you received this complaint on the phone 85 Listen first 86 Empathize and apologize 88 Ask questions 88 React positively and reach a solution 90 Notify the customer of the action and note what is to be done 91 Take action 92 Dealing with complaints in writing 93 Writing style 95 Structuring a written response 96 Key learning points Recording and thoroughly investigating complaints 99 Recording complaints 99 Accuracy of logging 102 Why investigate thoroughly? 102 Investigation checklist 103 Explain the outcome 104 Key learning points Conciliation, mediation and arbitration 107 Conciliation, mediation and arbitration 107 Mediation 108 Where mediation adds value 109 When mediation is not appropriate 109 Conflict management 109 Impartiality 110 The mediation process 111

5 Questioning techniques 113 Influencing techniques 114 Mediation skills criteria 115 Key learning points 116 Will you make a good mediator? Making improvements as a result of complaints 121 Learning from complaints 121 The benefits of root-cause analysis 122 Service-improvement activity should be a senior management responsibility 122 Pareto principle 123 Techniques you can use for root-cause analysis 123 Techniques for defining the problem 124 Generating options for improvement 127 Tips on how to implement an improvement plan effectively 128 Eastman Chemical root-cause analysis 130 Complaints as part of a wider customer feedback loop 130 Other ways to generate ideas for service improvement 131 Key learning points Creating an environment that promotes high performance 135 The ideal complaint handler 135 Loyalty and engagement 136 Concentrate on your people first 138 How engaged are your work colleagues? 139 So how do you make more people in your team into stars? 142 Do not rely on pay and conditions alone as the basis of a retention strategy 153 Adopt a tailored approach 154 Key learning points 155 What are your team members' motivators? 155

6 11 Complaint handling and culture change 161 Customer service and culture change 161 Eight characteristics of excellent service organizations 163 Summary 174 Appendix: How customer-centric is your business? 175 References 185 Index 187