Many of you work in organizations that keep track of customer complaints. Have you ever thought of how they are recorded and tallied? What could possibly be wrong with this process: The customer brings a concern to your attention. Record it.

Let’s say a certain pediatrics unit reported the number of concerns on a monthly basis. The values for one period of 21 months were, respectively, 20, 22, 9, 12, 13, 20, 8, 23, 16, 11, 14, 9, 11, 3, 5, 7, 3, 2, 1, 7 and 6. But even though you know the counts, you don’t know the whole story because you don’t know the context for the counts. Before anyone can make sense of these counts, certain questions must be answered.

How is “concern” defined? Is it just an antiseptic term for complaint? Are these customer complaints, internally generated counts, or a mixture of both? In the data above, why does the number of concerns drop? And what about the rumor that the hospital administrator is using these numbers to rank departments for bonuses? What exactly constitutes a complaint? Does a complaint about a chilly reception room count?

What else does your organization “count” besides complaints?

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