Handling customer complaints effectively is critical for any business that cares about retaining customers and maintaining a positive brand reputation. When issues inevitably arise, how you respond can turn frustrated customers into loyal advocates.
Implementing complaint management software enables your support team to efficiently track, prioritize, and resolve negative feedback across multiple channels in one centralized platform. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top complaint management systems on the market to help you find the best solution for your business.
What is a Complaint Management System?
A complaint management system is a software solution designed specifically for taking in, processing, tracking, and reporting on customer issues, feedback, and grievances. Key features include:
- Multi-channel support – Capture complaints from email, phone, web forms, social media, and more
- Routing and assignment – Intelligently route complaints to agents with relevant knowledge and availability
- Collaboration – Facilitate collaboration between agents and teams to resolve tricky issues
- Knowledge base – Give agents the context and resources they need for informed responses
- Reporting and analytics – Identify recurring problems and opportunities for improvement
- Custom fields and workflow – Adapt the intake process to your support processes
Benefits of Complaint Management Software
Here are some of the top reasons to invest in dedicated complaint management technology:
Increased Customer Loyalty
By providing quick, empathetic and solutions-oriented responses, you can turn negatives experiences into positive ones and build customer trust.
Better Resource Allocation
Smart routing ensures complaints end up with agents who have capacity and expertise to resolve them efficiently.
Reduce Response Times
Automated workflows eliminate bottlenecks and manual handoffs that slow down resolutions.
Identified Improvement Opportunities
Gain visibility into common problems to fix defective processes and enhance your products.
Enhanced Accountability
With better tracking comes increased transparency and accountability at both agent and team levels.
Key Features to Look For
Here are some must-have features to look for when researching complaint management software:
Assignment Rules – Ensure complaints get routed to the best person based on expertise, workload and availability.
Service Level Agreement Tracking – Set targets for first response and resolution times and track performance against KPIs.
Canned Responses – Speed up response times by using pre-approved response templates.
Commenting – Enable collaboration with context and discussion around specific complaints.
Custom Fields – Capture and surface key complaint details agents need to resolve issues faster.
Reporting – Gain visibility into resolution times, sentiment, common problems and more.
Top 10 Complaint Management Systems
With a better understanding of what defines complaint management software, let‘s explore 10 top solutions on the market:
1. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is one of the leading help desk platforms and offers mature complaint management capabilities out of the box.
Key Features
- Omnichannel support
- Automation for common requests
- Self-service portal
- Robust custom fields and rules
- Built-in analytics
Best For
Freshdesk is feature-rich enough to support the complex complaint management needs of large enterprises, while remaining intuitive and affordable for SMBs.
Pricing
Freshdesk starts at $19 per agent per month for the basic plan. Enterprise pricing is custom quoted based on unique needs.
2. Zendesk Support
Part of the popular Zendesk family of customer service tools, Zendesk Support takes a proactive approach to complaint management right within your help desk.
Key Features
- Omnichannel support
- Custom ticket fields
- Robust reporting
- Skills-based assignment
- AI-powered suggestions
Best For
Zendesk Support scales to the needs of large enterprise organizations while remaining user-friendly for more limited teams to get started.
Pricing
Zendesk Support starts at $5/agent/month for the Essential plan. The Suite plan with full features starts at $49/agent/month. Custom enterprise pricing plans are also available.
3. HappyFox
HappyFox provides an affordable yet complete complaint management system for SMBs.
Key Features
- Email, forms, chat support
- Workflow automation
- Custom fields
- Robust permissions for teams
- Built-in analytics
Best For
HappyFox balances powerful capabilities with ease of use for small customer service teams on a budget.
Pricing
HappyFox pricing starts at $8 per agent per month, with volume discounts bringing the per agent cost down with scale.
4. ComplaintsDesk
Designed exclusively for complaint management, ComplaintsDesk is purpose-built for support teams dealing with high complaint volumes.
Key Features
- Social media monitoring
- Automation for acknowledgements
- Scripting for call center agents
- Custom intake forms
- Robust permissions and roles
Best For
ComplaintsDesk is ideal for organizations that receive complaints at high volumes across multiple channels. The call center features make this solution stand out.
Pricing
Contact ComplaintsDesk for custom pricing quote. As a niche solution for specialized needs, each plan is tailored to expected usage.
5. HappyOrNot
Going beyond after-the-fact complaints, HappyOrNot helps you take the pulse of customer satisfaction in real-time.
Key Features
- Kiosk and digital smiley boxes
- Dashboard analysis
- Survey delivery
- Custom data fields
- API integrations with CRM and support systems
Best For
Organizations who want to take a proactive approach by embedding feedback collection directly into the customer journey.
Pricing
Pricing starts at $279 per month per location. Discounts kick in at higher volumes with multi-location pricing available.
6. Grade Us
Grade Us focuses specifically on making it easy to directly engage customers for feedback through their existing websites.
Key Features
- One-click feedback buttons
- Sentiment analysis
- Automated distribution
- Powerful filtering
- Zapier integration
Best For
Solutions like Grade Us work extremely well for online businesses who want to leverage their existing web properties to easily collect customer feedback.
Pricing
Plans for single sites start at $47/month for up to 500 responses. Multi-site pricing is also available by custom quote.
7. Checkmarket
Checkmarket provides digital survey and feedback collection forms to help you take the pulse of customer sentiment.
Key Features
- Drag and drop form builder
- Advanced distribution
- AI-powered text and speech analytics
- Automations with Zapier
- Custom reporting
Best For
Checkmarket empowers non-technical users to easily create and manage dynamic forms for gathering customer feedback and complaints.
Pricing
Starter plan is free for basic surveys. Pro plan starts at $75/month supporting more responses with richer features.
8. SocialChorus
For online retail brands dealing with lots of public feedback on social channels, SocialChorus can help get your arms around customer complaints at scale across social platforms.
Key Features
- Unified social media engagement
- Smart inbox for managing high volumes
- Compliance integration
- CRM system connectivity
- Sentiment tracking
Best For
With advanced functionality purpose-built social media complaint management, SocialChorus stands out for high volume retail industries.
Pricing
SocialChorus offers custom quoting based on expected usage and complexity of program needs. Plans scale up to suit enterprise requirements.
9. Cherwell
Part of Cherwell’s enterprise service management platform, Cherwell Service Management offers mature ITIL-aligned complaint handling with advanced configuration options to model complex workflows.
Key Features
- Custom forms and fields
- Advanced automation
- Robust configuration and customization
- Enterprise scalability
- Platform extensibility
Best For
Cherwell shines for large, complex organizations like enterprise IT teams who need to map common IT workflows around incident and complaint management.
Pricing
Contact Cherwell sales directly for custom quote based on your specific environment and usage.
10. Quicko
Rounding out our list is Quiko, delivering an easy-to-use complaint management system designed for SMBs.
Key Features
- Email and web form support
- Basic custom fields
- Multiple user support
- Multi-brand support
- Reporting and analytics
Best For
With its intuitive interface and affordable pricing, Quicko is ideal for small companies needing straightforward complaint management capabilities.
Pricing
Quicko offers a forever free plan for 1 user with 50 complaint form submissions per month. Paid plans start at $8 per user per month.
How to Select the Right Complaint Management System
Choosing complaint management software for your company comes down striking the right balance of sophistication, ease of use and affordability. Be sure to consider factors like:
Channels – What channels do your customers use to engage and complain? Prioritize systems supporting your key channels like email, web, social media, etc.
Volume – Are you handling tens, hundreds or thousands of complaints per day? Choose a system that aligns with your scale and expected growth.
Team Size – Larger organizations often benefit from more powerful enterprise systems while small teams need intuitive interfaces.
Expandability – Consider future ambitions for cross-team visibility, automation, customization to allow for more mature processes down the road.
Budget – Fortunately most systems scale from free plans up to custom enterprise pricing, making complaint management accessible at any level.
No matter what solutions you evaluate, be sure to adequately test with real complaints at realistic usage levels during your trial period. This will reveal if day-to-day use is a fit before committing long term.
Best Practices for Complaint Management Success
While software, of course, plays an instrumental role, people and process matter greatly when it comes to resolving customer issues effectively. Here are some top tips:
Implement SLAs – Set service-level agreements (SLAs) for first response and resolution times and stick to them. This demonstrates your commitment improving.
Loop in Leadership – Complaints often point to opportunities for bigger improvements. Keep leadership in the know to connect concerns with resource prioritization.
Empower Agents – Trust your support team to make good judgement calls offers the freedom to delight customers.
Learn From Issues – Analyze complaint data and trends to uncover systemic gaps worth addressing at their root causes.
Close the Loop – Follow up with customers to confirm issues are fully resolved and collect feedback on their overall experience.
Well-chosen software combined with customer-centric processes for managing complaints ultimately allows your business to turn negatives into positives by fostering trust and loyalty among your customer base.
The Cost of Weak Complaint Management
On the flip side, failing to handle issues effectively poses tremendous risk across:
Customer Churn – Unresolved complaints lead directly to losing customers to competitors at alarming rates.
Opportunity Costs – Time focused on putting out fires pulls resources away from more strategic initiatives.
Reputation Damage – Negative public feedback shapes perceptions among prospective customers to drive them elsewhere.
Wasted Money – Poor products, services and processes that spawn complaints yet go unchanged drag down performance.
For companies not willing or able to commit to complaint management as an organizational priority, the downstream costs will quickly compound into destructive impacts.
Key Takeaways
- Effective complaint handling increases customer loyalty, fosters improvement and protects your reputation.
- Dedicated complaint management software centralizes and organizes customer issues for increased efficiency.
- Look for systems offering key features aligned to your support team‘s size, channels and volume needs.
- Combine the right technology with customer-centric processes for resolving complaints completely.
- Failing to be proactive risks customer churn, wasted resources and lasting reputational damage.
With a little diligence selecting a system tailored to your needs and commitment to continual improvement, your team can provide best-in-class support when things go wrong to keep customers happy long into the future. Reach out for personalized recommendations on finding the ideal complaint management system for your organization.
