Complaints management often involves dealing with and responding to the emotions and feelings of both the complainant and staff members involved in the matter or managing the complaint—particularly when the matter is serious.
Communicating with empathy, patience and respect can help resolve complaints quicker and enhance the ongoing relationship between the complainant and service provider.
Sometimes a complainant just wants to feel heard. The acts of listening, looking into a concern, identifying a resolution and following up, confirm to the complainant that they were taken seriously.
Helpful strategies
Try the following approaches when interacting with complainants to create a positive, collaborative atmosphere.
Active listening
Active listening helps build an understanding of the underlying issues and feelings involved, provides reassurance that you are taking the complaint seriously, lets the complainant know they have been heard, and helps them feel validated and respected.
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Tick: Focus on the complainant.
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Tick: Confirm what you have heard by reflecting back their information in your own words.
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Tick: Consider taking notes to assist your reflecting back.
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Cross: Don't give standard responses.
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Cross: Don't make assumptions.
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Cross: Don't get caught up in irrelevant detail.
Body language
This helps you to better understand how a complainant feels and how they communicate, and to positively impact how they respond to you.
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Tick: Consider the complainant's overall expressions, movement, gestures and eye-contact.
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Tick: Adopt an open posture.
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Cross: Don't focus overly on individual gestures or expressions.
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Cross: Avoid closed off body language such as crossing your arms.
Managing stress and emotions
This ensures both you and the complainant can continue to think clearly about the matter and understand each other, reducing the chance of a misunderstanding and further heightened emotions such as frustration and anger.
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Tick: Look out for signs of stress and heightened emotions that you or the complainant might exhibit (e.g. sweating, clenched hands, tense muscles, shallow breathing).
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Tick: Offer support to the complainant or an opportunity to continue the discussion later.
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Tick: Adopt positive coping strategies to help protect yourself.
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Cross: Don't tolerate abusive or threatening behaviour—ask them to stop unreasonable behaviours and escalate to a trusted staff member if it continues.
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Cross: Don't get defensive or fight with the complainant.
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Cross: Don't bombard the complainant with endless questions, paperwork or intimidating forms—this can be overwhelming.
Patience
This shows that you are open to listening and attempting to resolve their complaint, and avoids broken communication lines when a complainant feels rushed, misunderstood or devalued.
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Tick: Give the complainant enough time to express their concerns.
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Cross: Don't interrupt.
Understanding
This shows that you understand the complainant's point of view and their level of degree or dissatisfaction. An apology also helps to demonstrate empathy to the complainant and may diffuse heightened emotions.
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Tick: Put yourself in the complainant's shoes—look for common ground and mutual interests (e.g. ensuring a child gets the best level of education and care).
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Tick: Consider an apology—depending on the situation, be prepared to say 'I made a mistake', 'I don't know, and I will find out', 'What do you think?' and 'Let's work together to resolve this problem'.
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Cross: Don't take the complaint personally.
Transparency
This ensures that the complainant has realistic expectations about what can be done, and facilitates accurate record-keeping for any investigations, follow-up and reflection.
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Tick: Be honest with the complainant about what you can and cannot remedy and why.
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Tick: Take notes during verbal conversations—explain that you are doing so to ensure you have the right facts for your records.
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Cross: Don't make promises you can't deliver.
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Cross: Don't blame others (including the complainant) or make excuses.
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Cross: Don't avoid or ignore the complainant, or pass them from one staff member to another.
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Cross: Don't speak negatively about the complainant to staff or families of children.
Good communication skills can prevent minor issues from becoming more serious.
More information