Complaints can help your Business

Mistakes, errors, issues occur everyday in the business world and as a result complaints generally follow. It is, therefore, important to understand that no matter how big or small the complaints, this "feedback" is an indicator that something is wrong within the company. No one likes criticism but remember that this may often stem

How can a complaint help improve your business?

1. Show your client that you have a mechanism to deal with complaints. This is not a "red rag to a bull", this illustrates professionalism. Within the Lettings industry all letting agents are required by Law to be a member of a Redress Scheme - either the Property Redress Scheme or The Property Ombudsman Service. This means that the consumer has a point of reference once the complaint has been dealt with by the Letting Agent and the outcome for the complainant does not feel satisfactory

2. Receive the complaint with grace. The default is to become defensive. Don't. Train your team to be gracious rather than angry when a customer puts in a complaint. Face the complaint with understanding, ask and find out as much information as you can. Remember- we are all consumers.

Whether the complaint is in writing or over the telephone, you MUST ensure that there is a strong foundation and understanding throughout your organisation of how complaints are to be dealt with and why they benefit your company. Ensure that all your team have access to and have read your complaints procedure.

3. Ask the complainant how they feel you can best help them to resolve the complaint. Remember the customer’s feedback will always be beneficial and whilst the comments may feel “personal”, it’s about professionalism. Try to defuse emotionally charged situations by responding with the correct level of empathy and avoid selective listening or switching off during heated conversations.

4. Record the details of the complaint. Ensure that you follow up telephone calls with an email just to confirm the points raised in the discussion. Bullet points are preferable rather than long-winded accounts of the conversation.

5. Use complaints to measure and benchmark service levels. Corporates have the resource and systems to analyse complaints, use them to benefit the organisation and therefore, improve systems, processes, customer service and customer care. They do not always get it right. The bigger the company, the more complaints they tend to have.

Key Elements to reinforce with Your Team

• Develop a strategic plan

• Have a clear, flexible, welcoming and open policy on complaints.

• Train your staff in complaints handling

• Make complaints a priority

• Ensure you can process all complaints

• Set up a process to log and analyse all complaints and share with everyone

• Do you have a culture of continuous improvement? Do you check customer (and employee) satisfaction regularly?

• Always respond to complaints and do not hide

• Listen to your staff

It is important to lead by example and complaints your personal priority. There will be a hierarchy that clients may go through, however, as a director, owner-manager or branch manager, this needs to be a personal priority. Complaints can highlight problems with internal processes, training, specific employees/managers, products and customer service.