How to deal with complaints

Having lodged two complaints with businesses and had two extremely different experiences I thought I would share my experiences and make some comments and ideas on how to resolve complaints.

Complaint 1 - Email complaint lodged in January 2008 about bad customer service. To date the company involved has not responded - not even an automated response. I have actually contacted them twice by phone, submitted a further complaint but to date no response. Interesting on their website they claim they will acknowledge all complaints within seven days and attempt to resolve all complaints within 30 days.

Interesting when I have called and finally managed to get to a live person they have been helpful but ultimately unable to actually do anything.

The end result is that as a customer I am now looking for alternative suppliers, plus we will be lodging a financial claim against the company and will not be recommending them to any person I deal with.

Complaint 2 - A duplicate charge was made by the company in error. An email was sent to the company, an automated response was immediately received which included details of a tracking number. Within 24 hours an email was received advising the problem had been resolved.

So you have a complaint what do you do:

If you are in error, acknowledge the error and fix the problem. Give a deadline when it will be fixed and stick to it. If for any reason you can't resolve it in a timely fashion then contact the customer - ideally via a phone call - and discuss an appropriate means to resolve the issue. It really is all about communication - if in doubt of what to do talk to the customer.

If you believe you are not in error then the situation is trickier. First of all if a customer has complained then the customer believes there is an issue. Generally in these cases it is better to actually contact the customer and see if you can identify the root cause of the issue. e.g. they may feel that the way the accommodation description is on the website is not correct, etc. Ask questions about what outcome do they want? What do they want? Please tell me about your experience? Try to keep questions open and listen to what is been said and also not been said. You may not be able to resolve the issue immediately and in some cases you may not be able to resolve the issue but please do take the time to ask.