Complaint handling procedure template

What a complaint handling procedure template is for

A complaint handling procedure template is a ready structure for writing down how your organisation handles complaints. The process is what people do; the procedure is the written version that new staff are trained on, managers are held to and auditors can read. The template below uses plain headings and example wording you can adapt.

1. Purpose

2. Scope

State which customers, locations and channels the procedure covers, and what it excludes, such as staff grievances or supplier disputes.

3. Definitions

• Complaint: any expression of dissatisfaction about our products, services, staff or handling of an earlier complaint, where a response is expected or would be reasonable.
• Resolved on the spot: a complaint settled during the first contact.
• Serious complaint: one involving safety, discrimination, data exposure, legal action or significant financial loss.
• Owner: the named person responsible for the complaint until it is closed.

4. Responsibilities

• All staff: receive and acknowledge complaints, record them, resolve simple ones within their authority.
• Store managers: own complaints about their store and approve remedies up to a set limit.
• Customer care lead: monitors open complaints and deadlines.
• Head of operations: owns serious complaints.
• CX lead: produces the monthly complaint trends report.

5. Procedure steps

1. Listen, capture the facts and acknowledge.
2. Record in the complaint register with a category and severity.
3. Assign an owner.
4. Investigate proportionately.
5. Decide and communicate the outcome in writing for written complaints.
6. Close and record the outcome.

6. Timelines

Write your own targets and keep them realistic. An example set: acknowledge written complaints within one working day, resolve routine complaints within five working days, give a progress update every five working days for complex ones. If you operate in a regulated sector, check the timelines your regulator sets and use those.

7. Remedies and authority limits

List the remedies staff can offer and who can approve what: apology and explanation (anyone), replacement or redo (store staff), refund up to a set amount (store manager), anything above (head of operations). This keeps outcomes fair across locations.

8. Escalation

Explain how a customer can ask for a review of the outcome and who handles it, and how staff escalate serious complaints internally.

9. Records and data

Say where complaints are recorded, which fields are mandatory, how long records are kept and who can see them. Keep personal data to what is needed to resolve the complaint.

10. Monitoring and review

Tips for writing it

• Use the words your staff use.
• Keep it to a few pages; put scripts and forms in appendices.
• Have a store manager read the draft before it is approved.
• Date and version the document.

Common mistakes

• Copying a template without changing the timelines to ones you can meet.
• No authority limits, so remedies vary by store.
• Excluding public reviews from scope.
• Never reviewing the document.

Common questions

Checklist

• Purpose and scope.
• Definitions.
• Roles.
• Steps.
• Timelines.
• Remedy limits.
• Escalation.
• Records.
• Review date.

In short

Write purpose, scope, definitions, responsibilities, steps, timelines, remedy limits, escalation, records and review in plain words, set targets you can meet and review the procedure every year.

Doing this with Falcon

Falcon is not a complaint management system and does not log calls, emails or in-store complaints. It analyses the complaints customers make publicly in Google Maps reviews of your locations and Google Play reviews of your app, classifies them into themes, sub-themes and specific issues from your own taxonomy, keeps the exact quote behind each label and shows negative share by topic, location and month. Using the same categories in your complaint log and in review analysis lets you see whether private and public complaints point to the same problems.