Using story-telling techniques to liven up your complaints data

Earlier this year, I attended a talk by Richard Sedley of Foviance on social media and customer service. Richard gave a very engaging presentation and reminded me of the importance of story telling in engaging with an audience.

Richard outlined the key components for a good story. They are:

• passion to make your customers care
• a hero to drive the action
• an antagonist to challenge the hero
• a moment of awareness where the hero realises how to overcome his or her obstacles
• transformation wherein the hero accomplishes his or her desired goals

Richard's presentation actually reminded me of a well known brand that used story telling on their Intranet site to communicate the real issues that a family could be experiencing with their products. The company created a cartoon-style family of characters and gave regular updates on how they interacted with the brand and products - including how they benefited each character but were also used to share specific problems that had been encountered - all based on the daily feedback being received by the consumer relations team.

This has led to me giving some further thought to how story telling can be used when communicating complaints data within a business - especially to engage key decision makers and influencers to obtain the resources or commitment to action that can be necessary to deliver change and improve products and services.

A traditional management report that provides information on complaints tends to focus on the statistics. The report might include data about the volume of complaints received, closed, outcomes, handling times and redress. The report is likely to include a range of charts and/or tables of data - together with a text commentary - in an attempt to better engage with the intended audience.

Therefore, a report might begin like this....

"Here is our latest report on the complaints we have received this month.

We had 55 complaints (81% of the total) about personal loan products. 30 of these complaints were caused by general admin and customer service issues. This was due to a technical problem which has now been fixed. We also 9 complaints about income protection products but no underlying trends have been identified."

Now, what if we apply the story-telling techniques to this data and commentary. Let's start with the hero of our story...

"Joseph is fifty-five and would like a personal loan. He has carried out some research on the internet and discovered that our personal loan product met his needs."

The antagonist is the potentially faceless business that he is now going to deal with.

"Joseph completed our online application but we needed to some more information from him. We sent him a secure email message but he was unsure about what we needed from him and he replied online with his queries. He waited a week but didn't get a response and phoned us to complain."

Our hero's moment of awareness is that he realises that he can overcome the obstacle - the problem he is experiencing - by getting his complaint heard.

"He told us that he would have applied to get a loan from another firm but we had the best interest rate. He explained that feels we have let him down - he really needs to consolidate his debts and improve his financial circumstances but our delay is causing him anxiety and only adding to his financial woes."

We also gain better insights from this presentation of complaint data. We are also able to share valuable insights such as the customer considering that the product has the best interest rate on the market but also the reasons why customers are wanting the product (to consolidate debts).

Now we can add a twist to our story and bring in the customer relations team who are going to help our hero to overcome the obstacles he is facing. Customer relations will help Joseph to accomplish his goal - to get his loan - but will also expand the story to let the reader know that our hero is not alone and that there are many other heroes just like Joseph who are going to help the antagonist to transform and move forward with our group of heroes so that everyone achieves their goals.

"This month, we heard from thirty other customers experiencing a similar problem to Joseph's. We discovered that a technical problem was preventing customer replies on our application tracker from being alerted to the loans team. We have corrected this problem. We have said "sorry" to all of the affected customers. Joseph has told us that he pleased that we have taken action to address the problem he experienced and we have thanked him for staying with us. We were also pleased to let him know - and hear his delight - when his loan was approved."

We can even add a happier transformation and end to our story.

"This problem has also shown that 15 percent of our loan applicants don't reply to our email messages and fail to complete the application process. Based on this evidence, we would like to trial a new process for the loans team to phone applicants - where we need more information - and clearly explain the information we need and why we need this information. If successful, this would generate between £xx,xxx and £xx,xxxx additional revenue."

Of course, we mustn't forget about the visual impact - so a word cloud, colourful charts and other strong images will add to the impact of the presentation.

Customer complaints provide real insight into the day-to-day experiences of customers and how your business impacts on their lives. Recurring trends should be a call to action for business - but key decision makers will need clearly presented evidence before they are persuaded to act. Story telling can be a very powerful method for making sure the voice of the customer is known and heard within your organisation.