Complaint

Use this option to enter complaints for subscribers and non-subscribers. Subscriber complaints usually involve the subscription—such as missed papers, wet papers, and so on. Non-subscribers may report a problem with the carrier; for example, if he walks through the yard or makes a lot of noise.

Complaints are entered into the occupant and address records of the party making the complaint, and also show up on the carrier’s bundle top if a route is involved. If a complaint requires action, you can flag it for redelivery, and/or grant the subscriber access to a digital edition of the publication (typically access to the publication website or a replica version of the print paper).

Business Rules determine whether a source code is required for a complaint, the maximum number of days a subscription can be extended because of a complaint, and the maximum number of complaints a route may have on a single day before a warning is displayed. Business Rules also determine whether complaints are printed to a dedicated printer and, if so, the printer’s name.

If you enter a complaint after the dispatch cutoff time defined for that day of the week (in Setup), a warning message will be displayed. A warning message will also appear if the complaint is for the current date and the delivery deadline for the route has not yet been met (i.e., the carrier could still be delivering the route). In addition, if you use Circulation’s complaint escalation features, additional fields will open, as described below.

To enter a complaint:

• Find the occupant who is registering the complaint.

• Click the Complaint button ().

  
• Complete the following fields and click OK.

  Field	Type	What to enter
  Complaint Information
  PRODUCT	setup	Select the product for the complaint. You may leave this field blank if the complaint does not involve a product.
  INCIDENT DATE	date	Enter the date for this complaint. The default is the most recent date the publication/product was delivered to the subscriber or today’s date, if the complaint is not being entered for a product. You may override this date, but it must be a published date.
  INCIDENT END DATE	date	Complaints can be entered for a date range to create an individual complaint transaction for each delivery day that falls within the range. For example, a customer may complain that the paper was missing for the past two days. Enter the beginning complaint date in Incident Date, and the ending complaint date in this field. If the complaint is for a single day, enter the same date in both fields. If you use a date range, you can enter only a “0” or a “1” in the Days to Extend field. Entering “1” means that the subscription will be extended by one day for each individual complaint created. See Multiple-Day Complaints for more information.
  SOURCE	setup	Enter the source code for this transaction, such as “customer”.
  FORMAL	yes/no	Formal complaints (also known as escalated complaints) are typically generated automatically when a certain number of complaints are entered within a certain number of days (see Escalated Complaints). However, formal complaints can be entered manually. If you are entering a formal complaint, check this box; otherwise leave it blank.
  REASON	setup	Enter the complaint code for this complaint, such as “wet”. The Redeliver, Charge Carrier, and Dispatch fields will default based on this code. Note that complaint codes may be set up to be valid only before or after the route’s delivery deadline.
  COMPLAINT	unlimited	Accept the default complaint text or modify it, as desired.
  ROUTE	setup	Enter the route that delivered the publication. For a subscriber complaint, the default route is taken from the subscription.
  DAYS TO EXTEND	integer (5)	Enter the number of days the subscription should be extended because of the complaint. This must be below the maximum number determined by Business Rules.
  OLD COMPLAINT	display	If a processed complaint has its complaint code changed (a Business Rule consideration), the former complaint code is displayed here.
  Options
  REDELIVER	yes/no	Complaints often result in either an extra day (Days To Extend) or in redelivery of the paper on the day of the complaint. Indicate whether this publication or product should be redelivered. Click the Instructions button to enter redelivery instructions, if needed, which the dispatcher can relay to the service driver who will redeliver the product.
  DIGITAL ACCESS	yes/no	Check this field if the subscriber should be allowed access to a digital edition of the publication. This will send the subscriber an e-mail confirmation that contains a link to the website. Digital access for complaints is described further below.
  CHARGE CARRIER	yes/no	Indicate whether the carrier should be charged for the complaint. Complaint charges are applied by the Charge for Complaints option on the Accounting menu.
  DISPATCH	yes/no	Indicate whether this complaint should be dispatched. If this publication is not set up for dispatching, this field will be skipped. After the complaint is dispatched, the Dispatch Detail button will become available for viewing the date, time, remarks, compliance information, and other information.
  URGENT	yes/no	Indicate if this complaint is urgent and should be addressed immediately by the dispatcher.
  SERVICE AREA	display	If you use service areas, the service area for the route will be displayed. Service areas are used in dispatching.
  MESSAGES	display	If messages exist for this product, date, or route, the first message displays at the bottom of the window.

• Click OK to accept the complaint.

Digital Access with Complaints

When a complaint is entered for a print subscription, you can offer the subscriber access to the digital edition of the publication as a resolution, in place of (or in addition to) redelivery. For example, if the carrier missed delivering a paper and the complaint is phoned in after the cutoff for redelivery, you can still offer the subscriber access to the replica version of the current issue via the publication website.

In order to select digital access to resolve a complaint:

• The Business Rule—Do you allow access to the digital edition for complaints? (Customer Services section) must be set to “Yes”.

• If Redelivery is also checked, when entering the complaint, the Business Rule—Do you allow subscribers to select both the Redeliver and Digital Access options for complaints? must also be set to “Yes”.

• The selected complaint code must allow digital access for complaints (Allow Digital Access set to “y” in Complaint Code setup).

• The subscription must be delivered via route or mail (not online).

• The subscriber must have an e-mail address entered.

• The complaint must be flagged for digital access when it is entered, by checking the Digital Access field. The field will only be active if the above criteria are met.

If a subscriber is given digital access to resolve a complaint, they will receive an e-mail containing information for accessing the digital edition. The message will be sent to all active e-mails for the occupant, and formatted based on the digital access complaint confirmation template. The subscriber will be granted digital access for the current publishing day, plus a certain number of days in the past and future, based on Business Rules (the days in the past typically pertain only to replica editions).

Note: If you use Authentication Control records to determine whether a customer can access a digital edition via iServices Authentication, subscribers with a digital access complaint will be treated as online subscribers (Delivery Method of “Online”) during their access window.

Escalated Complaints

Circulation’s complaint escalation features can be used to promptly resolve situations in which multiple complaints are entered for a subscriber within a certain period of time. When a complaint is entered which Circulation determines should be escalated (based on complaint escalation setup—see Publication in the Setup Manual), a formal complaint message will appear after the complaint has been accepted. E-mail may also be sent to district, zone, regional, and/or area managers to alert them to the situation. An e-mail will also be sent when the escalated complaint is updated or resolved.

After the complaint escalation message is displayed, you must enter the escalation transaction, which has the same fields as a normal complaint. An escalated complaint transaction is not a complaint transaction; instead it will be named based on the escalated complaint label defined in Business Rules (examples are “critical”, “escalated”, and “formal”). This message can be modified, and contact information can be added by clicking the Contact button to open the Available Contacts window. Click Add to enter information in the contact fields.

• The Resolved checkbox indicates whether the complaint(s) that caused the escalation have been resolved. Once Resolved is selected, no further adding or modifying of contact records will be allowed.

• In Contact Text, the Customer Service associate or other employee can enter information about a contact they had with the customer, such as “The paper has been missed the last three days”.

• The user’s ID will default in Contact, but this can be changed.

• The contact date and time will also default, but can be changed.

Additional complaints entered for the customer will be attached to the same escalation transaction, until it is resolved.

Multiple-Day Complaints

Subscription complaints can be entered for a date range (i.e., a group of complaints). For example, a customer may complain that the paper has been delivered late for the last three days.

When a date range is used, an individual complaint transaction will be created for each of the subscriber’s delivery days that fall within that date range. For non-subscribers, each day in the date range will be considered a delivery day.

Also:

• Each individual complaint transaction applies towards a formal complaint just the same as if they were entered separately.

• When modifying or deleting complaints, the individual complaints must be modified or deleted one at a time.

• The subscriber credit is based on the copy rate by weekday. For example, if the complaint was for Sunday and Monday, and the value of the Sunday paper is 1.50 and the Monday paper is 0.50, the subscriber would receive a 2.00 credit.

• When carrier messages, a single message will be created that includes all of the days selected in the complaint.