The definitive guide for your complaint handling process (with templates)

Effective complaint handling is crucial to any business. Poorly managed complaints can lead to lost customers, negative reviews, and damage to a company's image. By focusing on improving the complaint-handling process, CEOs can turn dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates, enhance service quality, and uncover operational issues that might otherwise be overlooked.

In this article, we'll guide you through a proven complaint-handling process that turns negative customer experiences into positive ones. We'll also provide essential templates and automation tips to simplify your approach and ensure consistency across your team.

Your complaint-handling process: An Overview

Every successful complaint-handling process starts with goals as listed below: 

• Prompt and Effective Resolution: Quickly address complaints to satisfy customers and demonstrate commitment.

• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Build trust and loyalty through professional complaint handling.

• Employee Accountability: Ensure consistent service by holding employees responsible.

To achieve these three goals, you need the right inputs:

• Information received through various channels (hotline, email, social media, internal staff) detailing customer issues or concerns.

• Details about the product or service in question, including specifications, warranties, and terms of use.

Next, there will be a reference for a step-by-step complaint-handling process. It can differ based on business contexts or the overall complexity of the complaint. 

Basically, a complaint-handling process can be divided into some key stages:

• Gather information & Confirm (Stages 1 to 3): Receive the complaint, understand the issue, and confirm details with the customer.

• Investigate & Resolve (Stages 4 and 5): Investigate the problem, take necessary action, and develop a solution.

• Communicate & Close (Stages 6 to 8): Get approval (if needed), communicate the solution to the customer, and close the case.

This process documentation is often used to clarify the steps and provide detailed instructions. A visual reminder can help you see where those annoying blockages and opportunities for improvement frequently occur.

Learn how to create one here.

Handling Customer Complaints with Essential templates

As mentioned in the document, each step requires specific materials. Let's review some examples below:

1. Complaint Form Template

This form is a means through which you can receive feedback from customers. This form is usually in digital format so that customers can submit their complaints at any time.

Make sure to guide customers to provide all relevant information regarding the issue as well as their preferred contact method.

Complaint Form Template

2. Complaint Investigation Form

This template serves as your internal roadmap for investigating and resolving complaints. Here's how it works:

• Customer Information: Ensure you have the complainant's details for communication and follow-up.

• Investigation Areas: Break down the complaint into specific areas (e.g., product defect, service issue, billing error) for focused analysis.

• Proposed Action: Document the investigation steps, the findings, and the recommended resolution.

Complaint Investigation template

3. Disciplinary Action Report

After a thorough investigation and review of customer complaints, if the cause is determined to be employee error, internal disciplinary action will be taken. The Disciplinary Action Report form ensures all relevant parties are promptly informed of the details and decisions made.

Technology for Efficiency: Automate Your Complaint Handling Process

As your business scales, manual complaint handling can become overwhelming. A manual complaint-handling process can lead to several issues:

• Delays in response: Manual tracking slows down resolution time.

• Human error: Misplaced or forgotten complaints can result in missed follow-ups.

• Inconsistent handling: Lack of standardization leads to varying responses.

That's where Rework comes to the rescue. By automating critical aspects of your process, you can enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and improve overall customer satisfaction. You can learn how a customer of Rework used Rework Flows app 

• Automated complaint intake: Complaints are captured via a form linked directly to Rework’s process management tool, ensuring no issue is overlooked.

• Simplified process: Rework turns the complicated flowchart and rules into visualized stages with auto task progression options and detailed procedures for each stage, so that your employees can follow with ease. 

• Auto-reminders: Rework sends your team reminders to ensure compliance with service-level agreements (SLAs).

• Real-time reporting: Built-in and customizable reports provide insights for continuous improvement and optimization of the complaint process.

Rework your Complaint Handling process today! Download our complete Complaint Resolving Template Package to get started.