Sean Rai-Roche speaks to practices about their experiences
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.
When it comes to customer experience, there have been shifts in the cause of complaints. In 2016-17, the main cause was the attitude of staff members. In 2017-18, this has fallen to third place, but complaint handling has risen to the top and one issue in particular. Referring to 2016-17, the report said: ‘Refractive surgery related issues also accounted for a significant proportion of the concerns regarding complaint handling and responses to concerns raised in customer care complaints.’
Indeed, in 2017-18 there was a 247% increase in complaints about the outcome of refractive surgery. The nature of complaints was ‘consistent with previous years’, according to the report. The report attributed this to ‘awareness rather than any change in approach or practice by providers’.
Furthermore, there has been an eight-fold increase in complaints concerning the way in which practices respond to NHS voucher enquiries. The report stated: ‘Numbers remain small, however the increase is noticeable and may be an unintended consequence of budgetary controls and payment issues within the NHS England/Capita contract.’
Almost half of all complaints (47%) concerned goods, products and services from GOC registered optical practices. There were 765 complaints in relation to goods, services and products – an increase of 18 of the previous year.
There was little to no variation in the type of complaints made about independents and multiples – with both receiving similar levels of complaints about goods and services, 44% and 46% respectively, and customer care, 25% and 29%.
In terms of geographical variation, England accounted for 88.5% of all complaints but has 84.2% of the UK population. Scotland and Wales had a percentage of complaints similar to their population size, but Northern Ireland received fewer complaints relative to its population – 0.3% of enquires to the OCCS, compared with a 4.8% of the UK population.
High street encounters
One practice owner in the West of England told Optician that most of their complaints came through miscommunication and delays in service provision. ‘Sometimes people come back with frames that don’t fit properly or who have broken theirs and they complain that the service wasn’t good enough. Luckily, I haven’t had anyone report us to the OCCS,’ she said.
Disappointment can arise from unrealisitic demands about their corrected vision
The same manager also said she provides training to staff twice a year to help them deal with problem customers and ‘recognise early who might cause an issue’. When staff cannot contain the situation or placate the customer in question, the boss intervenes. ‘I think because I am the manager and my name is on the door, it alleviates things a little. They start to calm down and show a bit more respect,’ she added.
Practitioners also said that customers’ expectations were higher now than they were 10 years ago. ‘Some people seem to be more demanding and unreasonable – I don’t know if that’s because people are more aware of their rights or because they have higher expectations,’ she told Optician.
‘If we ever feel we have made a mistake or not dealt with something correctly, I think that being honest with patients and admitting when we may have fallen short of the level of service we would like to give, is important and goes a long way towards resolving the situation,’ she added.
A director of a high-end practice in central London believed that part of the issue was people getting used to certain products. ‘If a customer has come back to us with a complaint about a product, rather than say “you’re stuck with it” our approach is to offer them an alternative. And if they don’t like that, we’ll give them a refund,’ he said.
This philosophy, along with the idea that the ‘customer is always right’, had resulted in no complaints to the OCCS or GOC for the practice in the past 30 years. Its director did, however, say that being based in central London also made a difference, especially in terms of clientele.
‘Our location makes a huge difference,’ he added. ‘We have a wealthier, more educated client base and I think they are quicker to understand that issues might not be just our fault and sometimes compromise is needed.’
‘Another difference is the amount of time we spend with our customers. Our sight tests are typically an hour long, meaning we explain things to them in full and they have clear expectations,’ said the director. ‘We also try and screen patients so that we don’t give people products which they are sceptical or negative about, but it’s a fine balance.’
‘Customers need to limit their expectations,’ said one practice manager in the East of England. ‘I’ve had people complain because they thought the specs were going to correct their vision to that of an 18-year-old, but in reality they’re 80 and have wet AMD.’
Although this person had never had a complaint filed with the OCCS or GOS, they and their staff had been subjected to verbal abuse and even an attempted physical attack. ‘I’ve personally had a guy try to punch me,’ he said. ‘We had been telling him for years that he wasn’t legally allowed to drive because of his vision, and one time he got really worked up and tried to punch me.
‘Luckily, he didn’t see the chair between us, which is hardly a surprise, and fell flat on his face. That’s Karma for you.’
The manager said that complaints are typically dealt with quickly and easily, but he would like to see a route for reporting patients who are flouting road laws to the driving authorities as they were unsure whether they can call the police.
He also identified a member of staff who is best at communicating with patients, in this case the DO, and tried to get them to deal with complaints as a clear explanation is best at defusing the situation.
Another practice owner in the North of England said the main cause of complaints were delays on orders. She said, however, that such complaints could be made into an opportunity to deliver excellent customer service. ‘One patient’s glasses were delayed due to an equipment failure at the production site. She needed them to go on holiday with, so I drove to Kent to pick them up and delivered them back to her,’ said the owner. ‘She was very grateful and left us an amazing review.’
She holds monthly staff trainings days to discuss the patient journey and ‘how it can be improved’, and the whole team goes through the week’s events as part of a practice-wide reflective exercise aimed at improving the customer experience.
A separate practitioner told Optician that most complaints to their practice came from unreal expectations from customers, especially older customers who expect ‘perfect vision regardless of their age’.
‘We tend to have a reputation for being high end,’ he said. ‘So people often come to us after having tried everywhere else. And because we are high-end, they assume we can fully correct their vision, when that might not be possible,’ he said.
He suggested assessing patients’ expectations during initial conversations and avoiding those who had an inflated sense of what could be achieved.
The practitioner, who has worked in optics for around 30 years, said the number of complaints he has received has generally gone down, but he attributes this more to his own experience rather than the knowledge of customers.
‘The biggest problem is not glasses but people,’ he said. ‘Better people skills mean less complaints. And over time you get better and more experienced, so complaints go down.’
Finally, a practice owner in the North West spoke of his experience of going through a GOC investigation: ‘It’s like your life is on hold,’ he said.
Despite being exonerated, the practitioner still thinks there is ‘no logic behind the process’. He added: ‘To avoid any GOC complaints just give them their money back. The GOC aren’t good at processing complaints.’