Complaint management 2.0: Seven lessons from the frontline

To mark National Complaints Day, an open session was held earlier this week to explore the impact of social media on complaint management. Chaired by Guy Stephens, senior consultant at Foviance, the roundtable discussion featured a selection of representatives from the public and private sectors who spoke frankly about their experiences of complaint management in the dawning of the social media age.

 

So what were the key takeaways from this educational discussion? Here are seven of the key themes that emerged from meeting of minds.

 

 

 

"Over the last couple of years, companies have started to recognise that social media is an opportunity, and particularly where they have had a particular crisis or issue that has impacted a number of customers, it is an opportunity to not only go back to those customers but also provide a chance to say ‘OK, we got it wrong, here is what we’re going to do about it.’ And that is where companies can reap rewards in terms of their reputation in the marketplace. Complaint management helps organisations to drive their reputation on the high street and in the marketplace. A few years ago, Warwick Business School conducted some research into high street reputations and looked at those companies that had the best reputations in terms of customer perception, and those that had the worst. The key differentiator was complaint management - the companies that were seen to handle complaints well were the ones with the best reputations. And that is also going to drive a lot of what we’re seeing in social media and how complaints are raised." Michael Hill, founder, ComplaintsRGreat

 

"All the evidence indicates that handling complaints well has a huge impact on the customer and has longstanding benefit. Organisations that get social media right and really build it into the future shape of the organisation will have a really powerful advantage." Rob Skinner, head of PR, PayPal UK

 

 

 

"We have to respond in real-time now so we have to start looking at how we can become more effective and change our business model to allow that. Smartphones changed everything because until I had a smartphone I wasn’t online as much. Now I’m online always and our customers are online always. You can’t think ’when do we want to work’. You have to think ‘when do customers need to contact us’. Our shifts allow for coverage as long as we can and our Twitter handle in the US has shifts that cover it 24 hours a day." Heather Taylor, social media and community manager, PayPal UK

 

"We’ve been in this a little while and when we first started, social media was secondary – customers had already tried to ring us or email us and it was a genuine complaint where we had failed in first contact. Now we get people who tweet us as a first point of contact. They will come on and expect us to answer. So it can’t be part-time. It can’t be something we do now and again. It has to have just the same approach as with the call centres." Warren Buckley, managing director, customer service, BT

 

 

 

"Things are changing so rapidly these days. With tools like Google Sidewiki, which came out last year, it means that customers now have the ability to comment on your website in public whether you like it or not. If you can integrate that into your customer service approach and get back to them using the tools they use then they will respect that." Sullivan McIntyre, professional services manager, 6Consulting

 

"Somebody has gone to BT Centre and BT Tower in Google Maps and where you can comment – which is obviously built more for writing ‘isn’t the Eiffel Tower wonderful, I had a lovely day there’ – I found a whole set of complaints as well as some positive comments. That would never had occurred to me except that somebody was coming to visit me and looked up where we were and found it and told me. Now I have somebody in our community environment working out how we start to answer in Google Maps. I also get complaints on LinkedIn. So you have to go where customers choose to go. It is hard but you can’t stop this journey." Warren Buckley, managing director, customer service, BT