How to Turn Complaints into Service Improvements
Friday 11 July, 2008, The Metropole Hotel, Llandrindod Wells

0930
Coffee and registration

1000
Chairman’s introduction
Are you 100% sure you know what your customer wants?
• Linking customer satisfaction with complaints handling
• Cohesion of management, customer and front-line staff
• Sharing lessons from complaints between different service areas
• Turning around culture so complaints are seen positively

E. M. Bronwen Morgan
Chief Executive, Ceredigion County Council

1030
Regulatory framework and lessons from the Ombudsman’s casebook
The future of Wales’ complaints process
• Update on consultation procedures
• Enhanced local resolution and its
implications
• Adapting to structural change
• Embedding a responsible and proactive complaints culture

Part 1
General Complaints

Peter Tyndall
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

Part 2
Social Services Complaints

Rob Pickford
Director, Care and Social Services Inspectorate, Wales

1120
Questions and discussion with the Ombudsman

1130
Morning coffee

1145
What if...? Scenarios

10 tricky complaints questions will be put to the expert panel for a clear answer

Subjects for discussion will include
• The proper determination of compensation

 

• Dealing with multi-agency complaints
• Making adverse decisions easier to bear
• Managing and monitoring complaints when the service is commissioned

Panel:
Richard Penn
National Assembly Commissioner for Standards

Pat Vernon (TBC)
Head of Public and Patient Involvement Branch, Welsh Assembly

Rob Pickford
Director, Welsh Care and Social Services Inspectorate

Peter Tyndall
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales

1245
Questions and discussion

1300
Lunch

1400
Extracting first rate management
information from complaints data
• How are you identifying the gaps in your service programme?
• Using data to create a strategic picture of how your service is performing
• Software other companies use
• Capturing key complaints data and matching trends with expectations

Michael Hill
Founder of Complaintsrgreat

1430
Fair representation: key ways of opening the system
• Is fair treatment of your customers central to your corporate culture?
• Including and consulting with minority and hard to reach groups
• Removing root cause blockages or barriers to using the process
• How can complaints procedures be made easier for the complainant?

Dilip Agarwal
Department of Health

  

1500
Training and motivating staff to
welcome, own and deal with complaints effectively
• Giving staff permission and confidence to do what they know is right
• Performance measures, objective setting and rewards
• Improving the line of sight between case-handlers and senior management
• How do you measure staff understanding?

Robert Della-Sala
Head of Customer Services,
London Borough of Hounslow

1530
Afternoon tea

1545
Closing the loop with customers so you learn lessons and keep them satisfied
• Cutting out post service barriers
• Processes and checks to record communications with customers
• Evidence to prove action has been taken
• The value of feedback and learning

Richard Walter
Complaints Manager, NHS Lothian Primary Care

1615
Practical techniques that stop serial and vexatious complainers from using a disproportionate amount of time
• Ensuring the outcome offered is full and fair
• Drawing parameters and outcomes
• Setting up boundaries for aggression
• Dealing with complaints effectively even when you have to say ‘no’

Michael Hill
Founder of Complaintsrgreat

1645
Questions and discussion followed by the close of the conference


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