This is the second part in a series of articles on complaints handling, what it involves and why schools need to implement effective complaints handling processes. The articles are based on a paper entitled ‘Managing Complaints - Walking the Tightrope between Ignorance and Knowledge’ presented by CompliSpace Managing Director James Field at the Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association (ANZELA) Conference in Adelaide on 2 October 2014. The paper is available in full here.
A school's reputation is everything. In an age where every keyboard is a megaphone, only the foolhardy would ignore the risk that failing to properly address complaints can have on a school's reputation and ultimately on its bottom line.
A complaint not heard, or a complaint badly handled, is more than likely to result in a dissatisfied parent, negative word of mouth and/or negative social media commentary. For some 'unlucky' schools, poorly managed complaints can even result in negative commentary in traditional media channels such as newspapers, radio and TV. Of course the word 'unlucky' is inappropriate because these consequences have nothing to do with luck and everything to do with the way in which a school is being managed.
The potential damage schools could face from not having a proper complaints handling process in place was underlined recently, when the Victorian Education Department sent a 'statement of values' to government schools outlining expectations of staff, student and parent behaviour. The statement warned, in a general section, that a person who 'inappropriately uses social media as a forum to raise concerns/makes complaints against the school' will have contravened the expectations.
An article in The Age on 27 March 2014 dealing with the issue, quoted the Victorian Principals Association President, Gabrielle Leigh, as saying some schools and principals had recently been unfairly targeted on social media. In the same article the Parents Victoria Executive Director Gail McHardy was quoted as saying that the Victorian Education Department needed to improve its complaints process that 'often triggers unacceptable reactions and behaviours'.
Stop. Pause. Read That Again. What Ms McHardy is saying is that it is often not the original grievance that triggers these inappropriate behaviours but rather it is the poor complaints handling processes employed by schools that frustrate parents and lead them to act inappropriately.
Whilst the rise of social media has certainly highlighted the importance of effectively managing complaints, the reality is that effective complaints management has been a focus of commercial businesses for many years.
There is an old adage that an unhappy customer will, on average, tell ten people about their bad experience. These ten people will then each tell a further five people and so on. For every formal complaint a business actually receives, there are supposedly nine other customers who never complain directly but still tell ten people about their bad experience. If this is true, basic maths tells us that for every formal complaint a business receives, no less than 500 people will have heard about the other customer’s bad experience.
The bad news for schools that have not developed formal systems for handling complaints is that these figures, as frightening as they are, are based on research undertaken in 1999, which was more or less before the internet really started to get going. In those days email was in its infancy, there was no Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, and certainly not the depth of online discussion forums that dominate the net these days (see, eg, < http://forums.whirlpool.net.au> and various posts about complaints therein).
Now, with the growth of social media, when someone wants to complain about a school they have the world’s biggest megaphone at their fingertips. While positive news often travels slowly, negative comments about a school will usually travel very quickly. One negative experience broadcast over the internet has the power to severely damage a school’s reputation, potentially undoing the years of hard work that went into building that reputation.
Schools should not be alarmed or intimated by the social media age. By understanding the issues and dealing with them head-on, there is an opportunity to not only prevent negative publicity, but also to enhance a school's reputation.
The next article in this series will deal with the nine key elements which should be considered for an effective complaints handling program.