Correspondence: Mike Hayward, Down Lodge 79 Church Road Winterbourne Bristol BS36 1BY, UK Tel: +44 7710 353803 E-mail: mike.hayward@talktalk.net

¹was, until 2004, Direct Marketing Manager at Cornhill Direct responsible for general insurance marketing. Subsequently he worked as a consultant and for the last two years has been helping a major international insurance group, Allianz SE, increase their understanding of customers by improving complaint management across the globe. This has involved bringing together internal expertise and external good practice to produce guidance that can be implemented in any market and certifying local projects to ensure that they meet quality standards. He has recently joined Higos Insurance Services as Marketing Manager.

Received 23 January 2008.

Abstract

Customers are contacting organisations all the time about their dissatisfaction with products and services. If an organisation really wants to understand its customers, the first thing it should do is to ensure that it has effective complaint management processes in place. Customers' complaints provide real, first-hand feedback to an organisation and should be the first place to look to understand why customers may be dissatisfied with your products or services.