Paul Hackett, CEO of Southern Housing commented in Housing Today that many housing associations’ earnings aren’t enough to cover their costs.
Added to that piece of news, the Institute of Customer service comments that in a rush to reduce prices, many brands are pursuing false economies by cutting corners in the wrong places. As a result of failing to get things right first time, the cost of handling complaints has risen to a record £9.24 billion a month. To put that into perspective, that is more than the monthly wage bill for the whole NHS!
Many housing association’s earnings aren’t enough to cover their costs
All of which led me to consider the hidden cost of a complaint.
It’s not just about compensation awarded, but also the hidden costs. When a customer reports a complaint, the first and most obvious direct cost to your business is the time spent resolving the issue. Including the time spent listening, discussing, and following up with the customer.
But that’s not all.
There’s the internal communication that comes with each complaint. The time spent discussing the cause, agreeing on a resolution, and determining responsibility. That often takes much longer than it should.
This ties up your resources, preventing you from providing a response to other customers and leading to further dissatisfaction and complaints, and more repeat contacts.
That further burden on resources leads to employee dissatisfaction, employee burnout, time lost through sickness and employee attrition.
And let’s not forget about the silent customers. 96% of unhappy customers won’t complain, but they will tell everyone else about their negative experience, ultimately leading to time spent and money lost on damage control.
The cost of handling complaints has risen to a record £9.24 billion a month.
So, what is the true cost to your organisation? Are you throwing money down the drain fighting fires or have you found the root cause of the influx of complaints?
I’d wager that, if you did a root cause analysis and went beyond the initial reason for a complaint, you’d find your problems aren’t damp and mould, they’re not building safety, they’re not a small number of vexatious complainants, the majority of whom probably wouldn’t be vexatious if you treated them properly in the first place.
The root cause is CULTURE!