In focus: Honesty and reflection key to dealing with complaints

Rigorously recording, analysing and presenting the cause and nature of customer complaints enables the optical profession to identify where service needs to be improved.

Since 2014-15, when Nockolds Solicitors took over the running of the OCCS, the number of complaints received has more than doubled to 1,410 in 2017-18. The OCCS, however, ‘forecasts a levelling off of this increase’, which explains a rise of just 1% last year.

Some of the key findings of this year’s OCCS report expose issues with customer care, refractive surgery outcomes and NHS voucher enquiries. The report revealed that more than a quarter, 28%, of all complaints focused on customer care, which the OCCS defined as ‘the relationship between optical professionals and consumer’. The latest figure, 369 complaints, represented an overall fall of complaints about customer care from 2015-16 levels of 462.