No organization wants to receive complaints. In today’s world making a complaint, however small, is easier than ever, particularly through social media.

In recent years the spotlight has been on the mishandling of customer complaints and the fines levied, particularly in the energy and banking sectors. As such, any customer-facing organization can benefit from having an effective and efficient procedure in place reflecting the needs of both the organizations supplying products, and services, and the recipients of those products and services.

Manage customer complaints effectively and you’ll have more chance of meeting their expectations as well. And you can quickly turn customer complaints into customer satisfaction instead – especially when you view complaints as an opportunity to improve what you do and how you do it.

Standards can help you to achieve this whatever the size or nature of your business.

Adopting a Customer Complaints Management System

The customer complaints management system set out in standard BS ISO 10002 is a basic but essential requirement for any business – especially businesses that want to become and remain successful. 

This international standard gives guidelines on how a complaints handling process should be put in place. It provides guidance on the process of complaints handling as it relates to an organization’s products and services, including their planning, design, development, operation, maintenance, and improvement.

 It’s one in a series on customer satisfaction, the others being:

• BS ISO 10001 Quality management. Customer satisfaction. Guidelines for codes of conduct for organizations

• BS ISO 10003 Quality management. Customer satisfaction. Guidelines for dispute resolution external to organizations

• BS ISO 10004 Quality management. Customer satisfaction. Guidelines for monitoring and measuring

How Can Standard BS 8543 Complaint Handling Help My Organization?

Standard BS 8543 Complaint Handling in Organizations. Specification provides you with guidelines for putting in place your own complaints management system helping you to identify complaints, their cause, and also how to deal with them efficiently and effectively in order to benefit your organization, your customers, and the complainants. It provides a specification for the design and implementation of an effective and efficient complaint-handling process for all types of commercial or non-commercial activities.

Using BS 8543 can:

• Create a customer-focused approach to resolving complaints

• Encourage personnel to improve their skills in working with customers

• Improve an organization's reputation

• Build customer loyalty

• Enhance customer satisfaction

• Enable customer retention

Any customer-facing organization could benefit from having an effective and efficient procedure in place which reflects both the organization’s needs and the needs of those in receipt of its products and services. Therefore, this standard is relevant to all markets that provide products or services to consumers through any channel, including local authorities, banks, the NHS, utility companies, retailers, etc.

For those already working within the framework of BS ISO 10002 Quality management. Customer satisfaction. Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations, BS 8543 provides an opportunity for businesses to develop their complaints handling process and show that they meet the full ‘requirements’ rather than the ‘guidelines’ of best practice complaint management.

Get everyone in your business involved in embedding a culture of excellent customer service. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your customer service and complaint management processes and the performance of your people. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Request to learn more.

10 Top Tips for Implementing Complaints Management Standards

Here are our ten tips for ensuring the effective implementation of a complaints management standard:

1.   Get commitment and support from senior management

2.   Engage the whole business with good internal communication

3.   Compare existing management processes with standard requirements

4.   Get customer feedback on current complaints management processes.

5.   Establish an implementation team to get the best results

6.   Map out and share roles, responsibilities, and timescales

7.   Adapt the principles of the complaints management standard to your business

8.   Motivate staff involvement with training and incentives

9.   Train staff to understand and use the complaints management standard

10. Regularly review your complaints management standard processes to make sure it remains effective and that you are continually improving it

Establish good practices for complaints management within your business by adding standards BS ISO 10002 and BS 8543 to your collection.