Set-up, Complaint Stages

You can access the set-up screen for complaints either via the “Set-up” button on the Main Menu, or via the “Signpost” button of the Complaints screen. This set-up procedure allows you to pre-define a list of stages to use for progressing your complaints (from initial receipt to eventually being settled), and also for listing them accordingly.

To set-up or edit complaint stages, starting from the “Setup Complaints Stages” pop-up, as shown above…

• To ADD a new stage, type the description in the “Complaint stage” dropdown (e.g. “Complaint received”), then click “Add”
• To DELETE an existing stage, select it from the “Complaint stage” dropdown, then click “Delete”
• To CHANGE an existing stage, type over the current description, then click “Change” at the bottom right, as shown below. Do not use the colour “Change” button by mistake

• To associate the currently displayed colour with a stage, tick “Use colour”
• To change the colour of a stage, click the “Change” button to the right of the current colour and select a different one
• N.B. AT LEAST ONE STAGE SHOULD BE TICKED AS COMPLETED (see notes below)
• Click “Close” when done

“Completed” Complaint Stages

Whereas you may progress your complaints through a number of stages (see suggested examples below), at some point they will all come to an end (or ends, if you have more than one way of concluding them). All the stage descriptions that are for such “ends” to the process should be ticked as “Completed”. You will then be able to use the “Signpost” option in the Complaints program “to hide complaints at ‘completed’ stages”.

SUGGESTED STAGES	STATUS	COLOUR
Complaint received	Active	Red
Complaint details taken	Active	Red
Response given	Active	Red
Response refuted	Active	Red
Response accepted	Active	Red
Escalated response given	Active	Red
Escalated response refuted	Active	Red
Escalated response accepted	Active	Red
Arbitration offered	Active	Red
Arbitration due	Active	Red
Complaint settled	Completed	Blue

Deleting And Changing Active Stages

You cannot delete a stage that is currently in use. On the other hand, you can change a stage that is currently in use, in which case all the complaints at that stage will also be updated.

Use of Colours

Although you’ll be able to sort your complaints by date, client, stage, complaint handler and details, you may find it additionally helpful if the displayed scrolling list uses different colours for stage groupings. For example, you might choose to display all settled complaints in blue with all active ones in red.