White Paper Conferences: Learning from Public Sector Complaints June 2014 - Edinburgh

How do you demonstrate the wider learning from complaints across your organisation, showing what you have changed to customers and staff and how you have supported and shaped perceptions of your service?

My background in complaints and the user interest

• Policy and principles – National Consumer Council

• Public service regulation – Ofwat

• Complaints as Board asset – City and Hackney PCT NED

• Whistleblowing – Public Concern at Work

• Advocacy – Parent and Carer Committee RCPCH

• Consultancy – advice to public bodies, private provider, government departments and charities

• Adjudication – independent adjudicator for ISCAS

• Frontline – school governor and more…..

Do us a favour

Why we need to learn to love complaints

Why don’t more people complain?

And why don’t people complain more?

What is it that prevents people sharing their bad experiences?

• Fear of repercussions

• Feeling intimidated

• Fear of confrontation

• Not knowing how the System works

• Not wanting to relive a bad experience

• Lack of time

• Previous bad experiences of raising concerns

• Thinking it won’t make any difference

The toxic cocktail of complaints

If complaints are so good for us, why do they make us feel a bit sick?

“My own anger propelled me” – what drives the complainant?

• Starts with an emotion – anger, fear, anxiety, irritation, inconvenience, discomfort

• Expectations not met – this is not what I had planned

• Emotion drives persistence and determination

• Sometimes turns into obsession

• I have to do this for my child, my mother, my neighbour

• I don’t anyone else to have to experience what I have gone through

“I sincerely hope that no member of my family or friends is ever admitted to the this Hospital. Your negligence killed my mother- and to have to watch for 3 months just how shoddy your hospital is run has opened my eyes to a world that I never thought existed. Disgraceful- is what I think of this Hospital.”

“My heart sinks, my blood pressure rises” – reacting to complaints

• This is a personal attack on me and my colleagues

• This is an attack on my professionalism

• I am at risk if this complaint is found to be true

• I’ve heard it all before

• I am too busy to deal with this right now

• Our business is much more complicated than you realise

• This person is obsessed and may be mentally ill

• This person is just playing the system

• They might be right but there is not much I can do

Sticking to the facts – is it the answer?

• Complaints processes focus on facts and not on emotions

• Tone is often adversarial

• The language of the detective novel

• Emotion is discouraged on both sides

• Emphasis on process means the messiness is tidied away

• Emphasis on process makes staff feel they are being fair but can look like indifference, condescension or exclusion

• Feels like it is designed for those inside the organisation not for the complainant

User insight as business intelligence

Collecting actionable data

• Review the categories under which you record complaints

• Find easy ways for staff to record their own concerns and those of their customers – do they have the answer?

• Be quick and dirty – don’t let the best be the enemy of the good

• Make complaints into working documents – case studies for training sessions, quotes in the annual report

• Board members and senior staff should read samples of complaints – it is absolutely their business too

• Rethink how you report complaints to the senior managers and Board members

Acting on the data

• Don’t allow anyone to report complaints data without telling you what they learned and what they did about it

• Never run complaints processes over staff heads

• Complaint handling is NOT an admin process - it part of everybody’s day job and part of good governance

• Rethink the role of complaints staff and raise their status – can they hold senior managers to account – if not, who can?

• Find out more – if you need to know more, ask the complainant – give them a call, invite them in and listen

Acting on the data

• Make complaint analysis an integral part of service redesign

• Don’t be shy – find out whether other people have had the same experience – surveys, telephone interviews etc

• If people take the time to tell you what they think, take the time to tell them what you have done about it – not just today for them but tomorrow for everyone

• Find out from staff and users whether they think the process works for them

Complaints and service redesign

Demonstrating the impact of complaints

Need a slide in here to introduce this section – depending on context

The bigger picture - share the story

• Be open and responsive to complaints on social media

• Sell the good news stories – You Said, We Did

• Get the Board on board – how do governance and complaints relate?

• Complaints as part of service redesign

• Turn your complainants into fans and advocates

• User experience can be hard data if you gather it and analyse it in the right ways.

Discussion: why does the public sector find it so hard to learn from complaints?

Caroline Millar caroline@millaradamsoncraig.co.uk www.millaradamsoncraig.co.uk www.publicinvolvement.co.uk