In one of my research projects, I investigated the causes or sources of customer complaints. The major objective was to understand if customer complaints were not handled effectively, and if not, why? So was the problem with the customer complaint handling process or with the customers?

However, I made a shocking discovery which created so much bias for the study. The question that stared me in the face was: “Should we focus on the process or on the people”? Are “customers  the real Kings or the employees ?”

The root causes of complaint are usually due to internal weaknesses related to lack of management support, lack of employee motivation, poor internal and external communication and a large percentage of productivity problems are caused by the company’s work environment.

The sources of customer complaints may include:

Complaints emanate from failures such as:

• Bottlenecks and not communicating the service situation to customers;
• Mistakes in documentation;
• Employee attitude and training – lack of product and process information, and lack of willingness to assist customers.
• Technical problems;
• Unethical practices.

• The delay in service is causing a massive queue.
• Human factor due to the bad attitude of staff and the delay in work/schedule.  
• Systemic issues refer to errors in the document and the wrong entry of information by staff.
• Structural issues refer to poor accessibility.

The major strategy for reducing complaints is for firms to focus more attention on human resources management, to reduce ignorance of staff regarding providing customers with proper information about products, services and procedures. Focusing resources on training and motivating staff are the main strategies for mitigating complaints. Successful improvement in service recovery can be achieved if investment is made in training the workforce of the firm. To reduce complaints, the company must continuously improve its products, services and the complaint handling process, with improvement driven by customers’ expectations of service and product performance.

It has become an undeniable fact that no matter how top-notch, sophisticated, digitalised, revamped, automated, and re-engineered the business processes of organisations are, without “employee willingness” to operate the processes to optimal performance, those processes will continue to fail from the customers’ and employers’ perspective.

Furthermore, the focus of employers should shift from the upper part of the spectrum, as is mostly known, “employee capacity and capability”, to the lower part of the spectrum. Employers should focus on employees’ willingness to work, commitment, buy-in to the company’s vision, taking ownership of the processes, and willingness to tie their success to the success of the organisation, among others. Until then, companies will continue to fall victim to constantly questioning the appropriateness or effectiveness of their processes and continue to spend massively on processes we know are managed by Humans.

Finally, why do we say customers are Kings, when we always say you cannot give what you do not have? If employees feel like part of a kingdom, then they understand what it is to make a customer King. If Organisations do not create an atmosphere of kingship, then employees will treat customers otherwise.

If you argue that after all “we pay employees to do their job,” then you should also be right to say “ without us, customers cannot survive, and so whatever product and service and however you offer them, they must purchase your product or service”.

References

LEWIS, Barbara R. and SPYRAKOPOULOS, Sotiris (2001). Service failures and recovery in retail banking: the customers’ perspective. International journal of bank marketing, 19 (1), 37-47.

SIDDIQUI, Massod H. and TRIPATHI, Shalini N. (2011). An Analytical Study of Complaining attitudes: with Reference to the banking sector. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 18 (2), 119-137.