A complaint-handling standard for branches fits on one page and answers four questions: who owns each complaint, what states it moves through, how long a customer should wait for each step, and who checks that it happened. Without those four answers, complaints go to whoever noticed them, sit in whatever state the last person left them, wait as long as nobody minds, and nobody reviews them. With them, any branch can handle a complaint the same way and head office can see where one is stuck.
This guide gives a template you can adapt, the choices you need to make, and the mistakes to avoid.
Why branches need a written standard
Without a standard, each branch invents its own. One manager phones everyone the same day and another replies to nobody. Neither is necessarily wrong for their branch, but head office cannot compare them, cannot promise customers anything and cannot tell which complaints are being handled.
A standard does not take judgment away from managers. It sets the minimum, so that a customer who raises a problem at any branch gets a baseline response.
The four parts
1. Owner
Every complaint has one named person responsible for it, from the moment it arrives until it is closed.
Decide:
- Who owns it at the start. Many groups default to the branch manager of the location concerned.
- When ownership moves. For example, to an area manager when the complaint is about the manager, or to head office when it concerns policy.
- What happens when the owner is away or leaves. There needs to be a rule, or complaints get orphaned.
A shared inbox is not an owner. If everyone owns it, nobody does.
2. State
A complaint moves through a small set of states, and everyone uses the same ones. Four are enough:
- Open: received, not yet acted on.
- Contacted: someone has actually reached the customer.
- Resolved: the problem has been put right, or the customer has been given a clear answer.
- Reopened: the fix did not hold, or the customer came back.
Write down what each state means and who can change it. The one that goes wrong most often is Contacted. It should mean the customer has been reached, not that someone tried or intends to. Define it tightly.
Reopened matters because it lets head office see where fixes fail, which a simple open and closed count hides.
3. Clock
A clock shows how long the customer has been waiting. Choose the points to measure:
- from arrival to first contact
- from first contact to resolution
Then decide how long each should take. There is no single right answer, because it depends on your business and your capacity. Set a target you can meet, state it, and review it. A target nobody meets teaches branches to ignore targets.
Show the oldest waiting case, not only an average. An average hides the customer who has waited longest.
4. Check
Someone has to look. Decide:
- who reviews open cases and how often
- what triggers an escalation, such as a case that has waited past the target
- who reviews closed cases to see whether the fix held
- how the lessons reach the people who can change a process
Without a check, the standard is a document.
A one-page template
Adapt the wording to your business.
Purpose. When a customer tells us something went wrong and asks to hear back, we put it right and we tell them.
Owner. Each complaint is owned by [role] of the location concerned. If the complaint is about that person, it is owned by [role]. If the owner is absent for more than [period], [role] reassigns it.
States. Open, Contacted, Resolved, Reopened. Contacted means we have spoken to the customer. Resolved means [definition].
Clock. First contact within [period]. Resolution or a clear answer within [period]. If we will miss either, tell the customer and say when to expect an update.
Checks. [Role] reviews open cases [how often]. Any case beyond [period] goes to [role]. [Role] reviews reopened cases [how often].
Records. For each case we record who contacted the customer, when, what was agreed and the outcome.
Learning. Repeated problems are reported to [role] and reviewed [how often].
What we do not do. We do not ask a customer for anything in return for putting a problem right. We do not argue with the customer about what happened.
Choices to make before you write it
- Which complaints does the standard cover? All messages, or only those where the customer asked to be contacted? Contacting someone who did not ask is a different matter, and in most cases should not happen.
- Who has the authority to offer a remedy, and up to what value?
- How do you handle complaints that concern safety, legal issues or staff conduct? These usually need their own route.
- Which languages do you handle, and who covers them?
- What do you do when a customer cannot be reached?
Mistakes to avoid
- Setting targets you cannot meet.
- Letting "contacted" mean "tried".
- Making the branch manager the owner of complaints about the branch manager.
- Measuring only averages.
- Writing a long document nobody reads. One page is easier to follow.
- Ignoring reopened cases.
- Attaching bonuses to closure speed alone, which encourages closing cases early.
Where Outhentik fits
In Outhentik, a customer who asks to hear back becomes a case with an owner, a state (Open, Contacted, Resolved, Reopened) and a clock that shows how long they have waited. The Cases page lists the oldest waiting case first, and a case keeps a history of who did what and when. Head office assigns and reassigns owners, and a branch manager can mark a case at their own location as contacted.
It supplies the structure, and the standard itself, the targets and the follow-through remain your decisions.
Frequently asked questions
What should a complaint-handling standard include?
An owner for each complaint, a defined set of states, a clock with targets for each step, and a check that someone reviews open and reopened cases.
How long should a customer wait for a response?
It depends on your business and capacity. Set a target you can meet, state it, and review it. Show the oldest waiting case as well as an average.
Who should own a complaint, the branch manager or head office?
Either can work if one named person owns each complaint. Many groups start with the branch manager and move it to someone else when the complaint concerns the manager or a wider policy.
What does "contacted" mean?
It should mean the customer has actually been reached. Trying or leaving a message does not count.
Why have a Reopened state?
It shows where a fix did not hold. Without it, a complaint looks closed even when the customer came back with the same problem.
How long should the standard be?
One page. Longer documents tend not to be read, and a branch team needs something they can follow during a busy shift.
Should we review the standard?
Yes, regularly. Check whether the targets are realistic, whether the states are used consistently and what the reopened cases show.
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Outhentik gives head office a direct line from customers at every branch: a case with an owner for each customer who asks to hear back, every message read the same way, and a daily view of which problems repeat and where. For a business writing a complaint-handling standard, it gives each case an owner, a state and a clock to apply it to.