'10 Minute Tip' by John Dale - Complaints Handling Expert - 7am until 9:30am
This is a rare opportunity to learn something very useful from a highly experienced professional who has nothing to sell to you because they're retired
John Dale worked for the NHS for over 50 years. In his last six years he was National Clinical Governance Manager for NHS Direct. A major part of his role included handling and reducing complaints. He reduced complaints from an average of 400 a month to 12 a month.
John was Chair of the Cross Government Complaints Group and was seconded to the Department of Health as the Complaints Manager for the National H1N1 Flu Pandemic Team (2018-9). He instituted and grew the National NHS Complaint Managers Forum and ran it for ten years into retirement. They didn't want to lose him. John was acknowledged to be one of only four people who knew the entire NHS Complaints Procedure from cover to cover by the person who wrote it.
John started his NHS career in the Ambulance Service where after thirty years he was an Assistant Chief Officer covering roles of Support Service, Operations and Service Development.
John also started the first pilot site for NHS Direct. Then two years later he went down to Bristol to start the last site to be opened.
John s also a big charity supporter and founded Tarsier UK to help rescue an endangered animal.
About the conversation:
The Six Simple Steps to Successfully Handling Any Complaint
Follow these steps to turn complaints into a very profitable investment in your organisation
Handle all your complaints well and you’ll get less and less of them. Your return on investment will be much lower costs and much happier customers who will tell everybody how valued they feel.
Learn the answers in six easy steps.
1) Receipt
What do you do when you receive a complaint from a customer? What are your feelings about complaints? Can you run such an efficient and effective organisation that complaints never materialise?
2) Acknowledgement
The first thing you need to do is acknowledge the complaint. How do you do this? Don’t be too quick.3) Investigator
Who should investigate the complaint? Will the person be satisfied their complaint is looked at objectively? What should the investigator do first?
4) Confirm
How do you confirm that you understand the complaint? Do you get the person involved in the investigation of their complaint?5) Document
What documentation do you need? How long do you need to keep it?6) Talk, Talk, Talk
Do you talk regularly to the person who has complained? Try to include them in the process.If you're not seeking the answers to all these questions you're less likely to have a successful to the complaint and that will cost you even more time and money.
