It is important to understand that customers who take the time to complain and give feedback to companies about their products, services or experiences are providing them with an extremely valuable service. Although complaints can shine an unflattering light on a business, they help detect flaws and improve the quality of products and services. Just as importantly, they offer an excellent opportunity for businesses to show customers how valued they are, to impress them with an outstanding solution process, and to strengthen their loyalty.

Smart companies are serious about successful complaint management, and realize the benefits of consistently providing superior customer service as it costs five times more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. In today's ever-changing business environment, customer service requests are more complex and, at the same time, the demands for instant gratification are higher. Geographically distributed offices, a myriad of compliance rules, pressure to reduce costs and the ease of customer defection all contribute to the critical need to maintain great customer interactions. Moreover, a systematic approach towards customer complaint management also generates ideas for product enhancements and new products, ensuring ongoing success.

The idea of providing good customer service and having a robust complaint handling process is easy to embrace but can be tricky to implement. Most companies already have a few practices in place to handle complaints, however few run smoothly due to some common issues:

Inflexible, Outdated Systems