Complaint Management Software Features
The solutions in this category offer diverse feature sets designed for complaint case management, reporting, and resolution. In a number of cases, these products fall into more than one software category and can serve more than one purpose for your organization. The following are some common features you may encounter when researching products that can help you manage customer complaints and respond with the appropriate measures both externally and internally.
Complaint tracking — Depending on your customer support systems and your other sources of collecting feedback (e.g., hotlines, web forms, social media, live chat software), you may encounter hundreds or even thousands of cases in need of attention. Many of the solutions in this category allow for accurate documenting and tracking of these customer complaints, accessible through an intuitive dashboard. These dashboards may include capabilities like searching, filtering, and assigning of cases based on review from managers or the support staff. Each individual case will include the relevant information for the user, such as customer contact details, the specifics of the complaint, and notes on any actions being taken in response. They may also include case priority or urgency tags that can help determine the turnaround time for resolutions and the order in which the support team should handle each task.
For the best possible complaint tracking, these tools may allow for certain stages or escalations to be established by the administrator, which neatly lay out the process for conflict resolution. For instance, stage one may be for complaints that were just received, stage two for cases that are reviewed and assigned to a specific employee, and so on. Along the way, users may establish a target time for completion and recording of case outcomes. Certain platforms include a time-stamped audit trail that identifies anyone who creates, modifies, or closes an electronic record of a complaint as well as any changes made along the way. When tickets are assigned to new participants or deemed a high priority by a manager, the platform may send alerts or notifications to the appropriate parties so they can get to tickets in a timely fashion. Within individual tickets on these platforms, users may also be able to create, manage, and schedule subtasks with individual handler assignments and due dates.
Because of the valuable data generated from these customer interactions, a number of complaint management systems include integrations with popular CRM software, customer service software, or other relevant platforms. Once the appropriate systems are connected, data may be automatically extracted onto related platforms as it is collected. This data may be related to customer accounts or the specific product features being discussed, among other things.
Follow-ups — Once complaints are categorized, prioritized, and assigned within a complaint management platform, you may find tools that assist with customer follow-ups as issues progress through the correct workflows. Good correspondence is essential to customer relations, especially when dealing with the emotions and frustrations of negative experiences associated with your products or services. With that being said, a number of complaint management products include features for scheduling and sending thoughtful follow-ups, whether through external messaging software tools or directly through the platform itself. This may involve messaging templates, reminders, and integrations with your team’s existing software stack such as email software or help desk software. Depending on the scope and timeframe for a ticket, you may send a handful of follow-ups or simply a final message once a ticket is resolved. Working within these platforms can help service teams plan the optimal approach and ensure smooth, productive communication with your customer base as complaints are reviewed and resolved.
Product and customer insights — As your company identifies and addresses issues related to your products or services, there is a wealth of valuable data to be collected with regard to correcting the problem and appeasing your customers. Reporting features on some complaint management tools offer analytics that measure trends and help draw insights that can benefit the company as a whole. This may entail root cause analysis, which can help identify areas most likely to cause dissatisfaction among customers based on past and ongoing complaints. Product teams may be especially interested in complaint data as it can pinpoint areas for improvement, gaps in service, and areas of risk so they can be prioritized in product workflows. This information may be available in customizable reports, which can be shared with the appropriate employees or teams, or simply exported onto other systems for future reference.
In addition to internal improvements, the data that is generated on these platforms may be useful for demonstrating compliance and customer support actions to regulatory agencies. Information such as average time to close tickets and the rate at which specific complaints are reduced can conveniently demonstrate process compliance and support efficiency to managers and oversight committees alike. This can be especially useful within industries that have a significant health or safety component related to products or services.
Knowledge base — Handling customer complaint scenarios will often require specific product or other company information, whether as a complete solution to the problem or as a supplement to the decided-upon actions. Complaint management platforms may integrate with or offer features of knowledge management software, which can help centralize resources for frequently asked questions, how-tos, and other useful information assets. In many cases, customer complaints are based around user experience challenges or troubleshooting problems that can be detailed for easy reference on support knowledge bases and accessed by customer service teams or the customers themselves. In other cases, complaints may stem from complex issues that need to be walked through step by step, and support teams may leverage knowledge bases to help connect the dots and accurately deliver this information as needed. Knowledge bases not only provide a central repository for this situational information but, in some cases, may store multimedia that can be accessed or shared to help resolve conflicts. The faster that support experts can identify the underlying causes and solutions to customer issues, the faster they can respond to customers with this information and successfully close their complaint tickets. Knowledge base features or integrations with knowledge managers can facilitate the storage of and access to this information.
