Complaint management excellence : creating customer loyalty through service recovery

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Across the global economy, customers' expectations are continually rising - but many companies fail to deliver against those expectations. With the rise in social media, customers are becoming more vocal in expressing any dissatisfaction, which can both lose existing customers and alienate potential new ones. Complaint Management Excellence provides practical advice, tools and techniques for managers to adopt when managing any complaints that come into their organisation. In order to arrive at a culture where complaints are welcomed, the underlying values, processes, structure, strategy and people within an organization all need to be aligned with, and respect, customer needs. Not only does this improve the long-terms prospects for the company itself, but can have a tremendous knock-on effect in terms of boosting employee morale and engagement. With case studies from companies as diverse as John Lewis, Waitrose, DHL, Hilton Hotels, the Starwood group (including Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton hotels) and BT, Complaint Management Excellence explains what customers are really looking for when they make a complaint, how to avoid conflict and how managers can lead culture change to ensure the best experience for all customers and clients.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures and tables (p. xi)
• Preface (p. xiii)
• About the author (p. xv)
• 01 Complaints as opportunities (p. 1)
• Increasing customer expectations (p. 1)
• The power of the customer (p. 3)
• Social media (p. 4)
• Delivering excellent service (p. 5)
• Levels of customer satisfaction (p. 6)
• Customer complaints (p. 8)
• What is a complaint? (p. 9)
• Customer dissatisfaction (p. 10)
• The risks involved in poor complaint handling (p. 13)
• The positive power of effective complaint handling (p. 14)
• The business case for excellent complaint handling (p. 17)
• Key learning points (p. 19)
• Rate your organization's approach to complaint handling (p. 19)
• 02 Encouraging dissatisfied customers to voice their complaints (p. 21)
• Encouraging complaints (p. 21)
• Why customers do not complain (p. 22)
• Ways to encourage people to complain (p. 24)
• Making best use of social media (p. 28)
• Double deviation (p. 31)
• The regulatory environment (p. 33)
• Complaints standards bodies (p. 34)
• Key learning points (p. 35)
• Rate how well your organization encourages customers who are dissatisfied to complain (p. 36)
• 03 What people look for when they complain (p. 37)
• What is important to customers when they complain? (p. 37)
• Fast resolutions to complaints (p. 38)
• Call the customer (p. 39)
• Single deviation (p. 40)
• Taking complaints seriously (p. 40)
• The emotional and economic cost of complaints (p. 41)
• Empathy and apology (p. 42)
• Meeting expectations (p. 42)
• What makes best-in-class complaint handling? (p. 44)
• What about money? (p. 45)
• What to consider when offering redress (p. 45)
• Types of financial and non-financial redress (p. 46)
• Gestures of goodwill (p. 48)
• Service guarantees (p. 49)
• Key learning points (p. 50)
• Customer complaint-handling checklist (p. 50)
• 04 Customer-management strategy and its implementation (p. 53)
• Setting a strategy for your complaint management (p. 53)
• Link to organizational vision and values (p. 54)
• Hard and soft elements of a complaint-management strategy (p. 56)
• Complaint-management policy and standards (p. 56)
• Complaint-handling processes and procedures (p. 58)
• Complaint-handling system (p. 59)
• The people side (p. 61)
• Recruitment (p. 61)
• Induction (p. 62)
• Training and competence (p. 63)
• Empowerment (p. 65)
• Measurement (p. 68)
• Learning and improvement (p. 69)
• Key learning points (p. 70)
• Seven Ss assessment (p. 70)
• 05 Communication styles and emotional intelligence (p. 73)
• Ways people choose to complain (p. 73)
• How complaint handlers choose to respond (p. 75)
• Emotional intelligence (p. 76)
• Key learning points (p. 81)
• 06 The skills and behaviours needed for dealing effectively with complaints (p. 85)
• Imagine you received this complaint on the phone (p. 85)
• Listen first (p. 86)
• Empathize and apologize (p. 88)
• Ask questions (p. 88)
• React positively and reach a solution (p. 90)
• Notify the customer of the action and note what is to be done (p. 91)
• Take action (p. 92)
• Dealing with complaints in writing (p. 93)
• Writing style (p. 95)
• Structuring a written response (p. 96)
• Key learning points (p. 97)
• 07 Recording and thoroughly investigating complaints (p. 99)
• Recording complaints (p. 99)
• Accuracy of logging (p. 102)
• Why investigate thoroughly? (p. 102)
• Investigation checklist (p. 103)
• Explain the outcome (p. 104)
• Key learning points (p. 105)
• 08 Conciliation, mediation and arbitration (p. 107)
• Conciliation, mediation and arbitration (p. 107)
• Mediation (p. 108)
• Where mediation adds value (p. 109)
• When mediation is not appropriate (p. 109)
• Conflict management (p. 109)
• Impartiality (p. 110)
• The mediation process (p. 111)
• Questioning techniques (p. 113)
• Influencing techniques (p. 114)
• Mediation skills criteria (p. 115)
• Key learning points (p. 116)
• Will you make a good mediator? (p. 117)
• 09 Making improvements as a result of complaints (p. 121)
• Learning from complaints (p. 121)
• The benefits of root-cause analysis (p. 122)
• Service-improvement activity should be a senior management responsibility (p. 122)
• Pareto principle (p. 123)
• Techniques you can use for root-cause analysis (p. 123)
• Techniques for defining the problem (p. 124)
• Generating options for improvement (p. 127)
• Tips on how to implement an improvement plan effectively (p. 128)
• Eastman Chemical root-cause analysis (p. 130)
• Complaints as part of a wider customer feedback loop (p. 130)
• Other ways to generate ideas for service improvement (p. 131)
• Key learning points (p. 133)
• 10 Creating an environment that promotes high performance (p. 135)
• The ideal complaint handler (p. 135)
• Loyalty and engagement (p. 136)
• Concentrate on your people first (p. 138)
• How engaged are your work colleagues? (p. 139)
• So how do you make more people in your team into stars? (p. 142)
• Do not rely on pay and conditions alone as the basis of a retention strategy (p. 153)
• Adopt a tailored approach (p. 154)
• Key learning points (p. 155)
• What are your team members' motivators? (p. 155)
• 11 Complaint handling and culture change (p. 161)
• Customer service and culture change (p. 161)
• Eight characteristics of excellent service organizations (p. 163)
• Summary (p. 174)
• Appendix: How customer-centric is your business? (p. 175)
• References (p. 185)
• Index (p. 187)