The old saying...

If you don't look after your clients (or staff), someone else will.

Complaints management and resolution is often an undervalued side of the business.  No one likes to receive a bad report, but the reality is, it's more than likely that it is going to happen at some stage.  While you perhaps cannot always control the experience people initially receive, you can control your response and go a long way to providing a fantastic outcome for all involved.

Remember that people who complain usually represent only the tip of the iceberg.  For every person that bothers to complain about something, statistically, there are many more that have suffered the same issue, and remained silent....or taken their business elsewhere.

And that's where having a dedicated system to log, track and manage complaints can make all the difference.

Are you listening to your employees and customers!?

Your staff and customers may be talking, but are you listening?  Having a formal process in place to encourage, receive and process feedback is a sign of business maturity.  Research has shown that employees actually want more feedback from their employers than they are currently getting!  Feedback management is so much more than handling complaints, or grievances - it's also about embracing the positive comments, and constructive criticism that both your staff and customers are giving.

As workplaces continue to become more social, collaborative and less hierarchical in nature, paying attention to the office "chatter", and fostering a culture of feedback is a fantastic way to build team spirit, optimize processes and refine business practices.

Turn the table on negative feedback by providing a structured, formal process for logging, handling and resolving complaints. Everyone wins - your customers/employees/people, your staff, your business. See negative feedback as a powerful force for motivating change and improvement.  Build this mindset into the cultural identity of your business by formally acknowledging and pro-actively tackling the issue.

Keep in mind that disgruntled customers that ultimately receive a great outcome often become advocates for you!  Ensuring that this happens is up to you.

Having a formal process in place for capturing, acknowledging and working with feedback allows you to:

• Repair relationships
• Improve customer perceptions of your business and services
• Turn adversaries into advocates!
• Understand the impact that feedback (both positive and negative) is having on your staff, your product and your business.

Every industry and business type can benefit from feedback management.

• Government
• Ombudsman
• Transport, Taxi, Buses, Trains
• Energy & Utilities
• Telecommunications
• Healthcare, Aged Care, Hospitals, Doctors
• Justice & Legal Services
• Human Services & Communities
• Education, schools, universities, colleges, higher education
• Emergency Services, Police, Ambulance, Medical workers
• Financial Services, Banking, Insurance
• Manufacturing, Distribution & Retail

 Continual Service Improvement (CSI)

Feedback isn't just about complaints management.  It's about  gathering, and managing:

• Simple feedback 
• Suggestions and improvements
• Complaints management
• Complex case management and investigation work

Whatever the type, all feedback (good, bad and ugly) is vital for continual service improvement (CSI).  When handled right, there is always something to learn from feedback, and when it is channeled into the business's improvement strategies, it becomes a powerful force for effecting change.  User complaints into opportunities for improvement and development, suggestions can be implemented, and observations and general feedback all give context to future business improvement initiatives.

Why complaints are often overlooked

The following factors are often found when no feedback system is in place.

• Feedback is not seen as something that requires a formal process
• Staff don't know what to do (either to lodge, or to receive)
• No structure is in place to acknowledge, record and manage the feedback
• No formal workflow exists to work with complex case management

HelpMaster addresses each of these, by providing you will the structure, the tools and the workflow to manage feedback.  The HR side of training, raising awareness and the cultural shift to a workplace of openness is up to you!

HelpMaster will help you with:

• Reducing time and costs in dealing with complaints and customers issues
• Ensuring that each customer gets the right support, the right response and the right result, every time.
• Acknowledging customer complaints with pre-made email templates.  Personalize for each unique case.
• Implement a review process, to ensure that each case is handled in the correct manner
• Analyse trends and patterns
• Learn from previous mistakes and approaches
• Identify areas where improvement is needed
•  Set alerts for serious breaches, or significant cases
• Assign cases to the most appropriate person
• Define automatic escalation and notification for different case types 
• Find out how much complaints are hurting your business.  How much is it costing you?

Use pre-defined templates, workflows and automation to quickly and effectively lead your team through all stages of complaint and issue management.