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Complaint handling is not clearly described in ITIL, but should be a very important part of any commercial type of IT support. Customers and users that complain are loyal customers and users. This may sound strange, but consider the effort needed to file a complaint. If you weren't set on using a particular product or service you would likely move to another provider rather than going through the process of complaining. Therefore, if someone files a complaint, you should assume they are doing so because they want to use your product or service, but are not completely satisfied. A complaint gives you the opportunity to learn how to improve your service without an expensive customer survey. You can learn how your product or service is perceived by someone that actively uses it.
In this chapter you will find a number of pointers on how to deal with complaints in a way that will build loyalty. The key areas that you will need to pay attention to are: Listening actively to the complaint, acknowledging the impact for the user, removing the cause for the complaint, and compensating the user for their negative experience and the effort they took to inform you about it.
It is critical that the user that has a complaint feels heard. This means that if there is a complaint you need to listen (or read) very carefully. Try to form a clear picture of the series of events that led up to the complaint from the perspective of the user. Nearly all complaints come from cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance means that what you expect to happen does not happen or happens differently from how you expected it to happen. In short, expectations are not met. Therefore, as you listen to the complaint, try to hear the expectations the customer had even when they are not expressed explicitly.
When listening feel free to ask specific questions to get a clearer picture of the series of events and the expectations that were not met. People that are unhappy often want you to ask them questions and giving them the time to explain what happened from their perspective is the first step in reducing any anger or frustration they may be feeling. Often you will hear them express this after they have explained what their complaint comes from by saying something like, "Finally someone that listens."