Addressing complaints is the most important aspect of a complaint management program. If a customer makes a complaint and you are at fault, you should do what you can to make all affected customers whole, or like the error never happened. But you must also consider more than just correcting the error at hand. You must also look to any resulting impact. For example, if a payment didn’t get posted correctly, late fees may need reversed, and information reported to consumer reporting agencies may need corrected. In addition, monitoring complaints and looking for the root cause is essential. A recent edition of the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Compliance Outlook stated:
Without investigating and addressing the root cause, resolving the complaint is merely treating a symptom; addressing the root cause systemically will help identify similarly situated individuals who were also harmed and prevent harm to other customers. Fully addressing a complaint includes proactively correcting the harm incurred by consumers who have not yet complained. Because only a small number of impacted consumers are likely to complain, even an individual complaint can indicate a significant compliance weakness.
Jerod explains more in the video.