On the one hand, it is an information flow, which can be used to help measure quality and provide structure for service design and implementation; On the other hand, it is a series of independent customer problems, each of which needs to be solved.
If complaints can be input as information for market research, so can suggestions and inquiries. Advice usually indicates an opportunity to raise the customer from slightly satisfied to very satisfied. Inquiries often reveal the weakness of enterprises in providing information or point out the need to improve customer education.
The advantage of getting timely complaints is that there may be opportunities to make corrections (and may cause significant losses) before the service delivery is completed. This remedy may be crucial when the service process is long and the consequences of the service are serious. The disadvantage of timely complaints (from the perspective of employees) is that listening to customers' dissatisfaction will make employees lose motivation, and handling complaints in time will interfere with the smooth progress of services. For employees, the real difficulty is that they often don't have the power and tools to solve customer problems, especially when they need to make alternative arrangements at the expense of the company's interests or approve compensation on the spot.
In either case, the way of handling complaints and solving problems may have an important impact on consumers' decision whether to continue to be customers of enterprises or seek new service providers in the future.
When complaints are satisfactorily resolved, customers are more likely to maintain brand loyalty and continue to buy such goods or services. It is found that 69%-80% of the complainants who are completely satisfied with the complaint results intend to buy different kinds of products again, while only 17%-32% of the complainants whose complaints have not been satisfactorily resolved.
Complaint handling should be regarded as a profit center, not a cost center. It also created a formula to help companies relate the value of retaining profitable customers to the cost of running an effective complaint handling department.