Question handling
What to do when the message is a complaint rather than a question
A complaint is not a question with an unhappy tone attached. It is a different kind of message with a different objective: the person wants somebody accountable to know, and they are watching how you respond as closely as they are watching what you say. Almost nothing about ordinary support handling applies.
What they are really asking
They want to reach somebody with the authority to do something, and to know that a record of this now exists.
- i want to make a complaint
- this is unacceptable
- i've been waiting three weeks for a reply
- who do i complain to
- i want to speak to a manager
- how do i escalate this
- can i have a copy of your complaints procedure
- i want compensation
- i'm going to leave a review about this
- who regulates you
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| Your complaints procedure, with stages and timescales | Who receives it, what happens at each stage, how long each stage takes, and how somebody knows it has moved on. Vagueness here is read as evasion, and by somebody already inclined to read it that way. |
|---|---|
| The named route to a person | An address, a form or a number that reaches somebody who handles complaints rather than the general queue the person has already tried. The whole reason they are typing this is that the ordinary route did not work. |
| The external escalation route, where one exists | In regulated sectors such as financial services, utilities, telecoms and parts of health and legal services, there is often a defined internal procedure followed by an independent ombudsman or dispute scheme the customer can go to. Whether one covers you depends on your sector and your jurisdiction. Where it does, publish it, including the conditions and the point at which it becomes available. |
| What you need in order to log one | Order or account reference, dates, what happened, who they dealt with, what they want as a resolution. That last one is the most useful and the least often asked for, and it frequently turns out to be smaller than expected. |
| Your response commitment | How quickly somebody will acknowledge, and how quickly they will substantively respond. Two different numbers. Publish ones you meet, because a missed commitment on a complaint is itself a second complaint. |
How to handle it
Recognise it and change register immediately
The first sentence of the reply decides how the rest is read. It should acknowledge that something has gone wrong and that the person is being taken seriously, before anything procedural. A complaint answered in the same brisk tone as a question about opening hours reads as dismissal regardless of the content.
This is a place to lengthen the reply slightly rather than shorten it, because brevity reads as indifference here in a way it does not elsewhere.
Acknowledge without accepting liability
I am sorry this has happened and I want to get it to somebody who can look into it is an acknowledgement. That should not have happened and you are entitled to a refund is an admission and a commitment, made by software, on behalf of a company that has not seen the file.
The distinction matters most in exactly the cases where the complaint may go further, and it costs nothing to observe. Sympathy about the experience, silence on fault.
Give the procedure, including the route beyond you
Publishing the external escalation route where you have one looks counterintuitive and is not. A customer who can see there is an independent route above you is more likely to give your internal process a fair run first, and a customer who discovers it after being stonewalled arrives at it angrier and with a better story.
Collect and hand over in the same reply
Reference, dates, what happened, what they would like to happen. The assistant should ask for these and prompt the visitor to put them in the enquiry, which arrives with a name, an email and a message at the address you nominate and is stored so it survives an email failure.
Then say who will be in touch and by when, and be right about it. A missed promise at this point is the thing that converts a resolvable complaint into a public one.
When it stops being an answer
Every complaint, without exception
There is no version of this intent that resolves in the widget. The only question is whether the handover is fast and complete or slow and empty. Configure it so that a recognised complaint always ends in an enquiry reaching a person.
Any mention of legal action, a regulator or publicity
A solicitor, a small claim, a named regulator, a journalist, a review site. These change who in the company should be replying, and they should never receive a defensive sentence composed by software. Acknowledge, take the details, escalate.
Distress, vulnerability or harm
Somebody describing real hardship, a safeguarding concern, a health impact, or language suggesting they are struggling. These need a person quickly and they need one who is trained, and the assistant's only job is to make that happen without adding a delay.
How this one goes wrong
The complaint answered by a bot
Somebody writes several angry paragraphs about a failure that cost them a day. The assistant produces a competent, cited summary of the returns policy. Nothing in it is wrong. It is the single most inflammatory thing that could have been said, because it demonstrates that nobody read it.
The cost is that the complaint escalates a level purely because of how it was received: to a review, to a regulator where one exists, to a chargeback. The defence is recognising the category early rather than handling it well, because handling a complaint well means handing it to a person in the first reply.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a dental clinicPractice complaints procedures are written and staged. What may be acknowledged, and why the treatment itself must never be discussed.
- For a medical practiceMost practice complaints are about getting through, not about care. Separating those, quoting the procedure and routing the rest.
- For a veterinary clinicVeterinary complaints arrive with grief inside them. Route the clinical part, never characterise the care, and keep a fee dispute separate.
- For a physiotherapy clinicHandling a complaint about physiotherapy when the message also reports a symptom, and naming the regulator route.
- For a opticianA complaint about a sight test reaches a registered clinician. A complaint about a pair of glasses is a dispensing matter.
- For a pharmacyA wait at the counter and a concern about what was dispensed are different complaints. Only one of them can wait for an email reply.
- For a law firmA published complaints route, the response period attached to it and the ombudsman step, handed over without the assistant defending the firm.
- For a accounting firmSorting a service complaint from a claim about the work, and why nothing may concede whose deadline was missed.
- For a insurance brokerService by the broker and a decision by the insurer are two complaints with two routes. The assistant must not choose between them.
- For a mortgage brokerA declined application, a low valuation and slow service are three complaints with three destinations, and only one of them is the firm's.
- For a estate agencyA tenant complains about a landlord's property, a seller about the agency itself. One written procedure, and a stage that sits outside it.
- For a recruitment agencyThe commonest complaint here is hearing nothing after applying, and it is the one an assistant cannot resolve. What it can honestly do.
- For a marketing agencyA late report is a service complaint. A campaign that overspent a client budget is not, and the assistant has to handle the second differently.
- For a online storeBy the time it is a complaint it is the third contact, the policy has been read, and what is wanted is a name and a decision.
- For a fashion retailerAn inspection call about perfume, makeup or wear reads as an accusation. Shrinkage arguments have two sides and no document settles them.
- For a furniture retailerFlattened fillings and creased leather are the commonest complaint in the trade. Never be the one who says that is normal.
- For a electronics retailerThree companies, each saying it belongs to one of the others. By now the complaint is about the passing rather than about the fault.
- For a garden centreThe argument is about conditions in a garden nobody saw. Say nothing about the cause and get it to a person who can look.
- For a bike shopThe noise is still there, or the bill grew. The work was done to a machine that has been ridden since, so the evidence has moved.
- For a restaurantA cold main, a forty minute gap between courses, a table by the door. What to record, and why the answer is never a policy paragraph.
- For a hotelNoise at two in the morning, a room not made up, a shower running cold. Somebody is on shift, so the reply's job is to reach them fast.
- For a holiday rentalThe review is written from the reply, not the problem. State only the published terms, take the details, and get an owner on it today.
- For a gymEquipment, conduct and money go to three different desks. Only one of them is safe for an assistant to acknowledge in any detail.
- For a salon or spaThe offer in this trade is a redo inside a window with the same stylist, not an argument about a result nobody in a chat can see.
- For a universityA complaint about a service, an appeal against a mark and a report about a person are three procedures. Naming the right one is the whole job.
- For a private schoolA school complaints procedure has formal stages and deadlines. The assistant's only job is to name them and take the details.
- For a driving schoolOne hour, two people in a car, no witnesses. How a driving school takes a complaint without commenting on what happened.
- For a online courseNot what I expected, a module withdrawn, an instructor who never replies. Where a learner complaint goes, and what is never conceded.
- For a plumbing and heating firmWhether the fault came back, a new one started or the work was wrong is a judgement for an engineer standing in the room.
- For a electrical contractorA coded observation on an inspection reads to some customers as an upsell. That complaint is about trust, not about wiring.
- For a removals companyA gouged wall belongs to whoever owns it, which on moving day may not be your customer. Say who to tell and what to photograph.
- For a car dealershipAftersales complaints run through published stages towards a final answer, and the stage a customer has reached decides what can be said to them.
- For a SaaS companyReliability, a capability moved to a higher tier and a bill in dispute. Where a paying team's complaint goes, and what is never conceded.
- For a developer tools companyDeprecation deadlines, a change that broke a build, and a reader who is usually right. Answering without conceding or arguing the technical point.
- For a fintech appA complaint to a regulated firm follows a defined procedure with deadlines. The assistant quotes it and makes sure the message is logged.
- For a healthtech appTwo routes, one about the software and one about the clinician, with different reviewers and different clocks. How to sort them in one reply.
Questions
- Should the assistant try to resolve small complaints?
- No. Even where the answer is obvious, a complaint resolved by software leaves the person feeling processed. Route it, with the details gathered, and let the reply come from somebody who can also apologise on the company's behalf.
- How do we make sure it recognises a complaint at all?
- Publish the complaints procedure so there is material for the phrasing to match against, and index it under the words customers use, which are complain, escalate, manager and unacceptable rather than customer feedback process.
- Is it risky to publish our ombudsman or dispute route?
- Where a scheme covers your sector you are generally expected to tell customers about it anyway. Publishing it early tends to reduce escalation rather than increase it, because it demonstrates a process rather than a wall.
Keep reading
- Handling asking for a personThe design question at the centre of a support assistant. Offer early, offer once, collect what a reply needs, promise a time you can keep.
- Handling service outagesThe assistant knows nothing about an incident unless your material says so. A status page it can read is the fix, and reassurance is the trap.
- Handling age and eligibilityState the rule, never apply it to the person typing. Age limits, membership, residency and licence conditions, and where the handover sits.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.