Putting AI, humour and insight into the complaints process

Complaints give consumers a voice, and the feedback can drive better business practices. But existing processes aren’t perfect. By exploring issues and new solutions, Dr Christine Armstrong is helping make grievances more beneficial for all.

Consumer complaints may not initially seem like an exciting area of research. But when framed as a way to improve customer experiences and equality, drive business innovations and enhance service quality, it becomes quite compelling.

This is something Christine discovered while working as a research assistant during her PhD at the University of Newcastle on a project about the ROI of effective complaints management, and what drew her to explore further.

Despite only having been in academic research for around 18 months, she has already produced a number of publications on the topic of complaints. Her overarching goal is to find better solutions—solutions that benefit both consumers and organisations.

Equity and accessibility in complaints

Christine’s prime area of focus is how complaints processes can be more accessible and equitable for groups of consumers who are vulnerable, for example, for people who speak English as a second language (ESL).

“People with ESL often face language discrimination when they’re in a situation where they'd like to make a complaint, so they are often less likely to make that complaint,” she explains.

To tackle this issue, Christine and her Newcastle Business School colleagues, Dr Alicia Kulczynski,Dr Margurite Hook, and Dr Moji Barari, alongside Dr Bin Li from the School of Law and Justice, are looking at how we can use artificial intelligence (AI) to help these vulnerable consumers compose complaints.

Testing the AI tool hypothesis

The hypothesis they’re working with is that in using an AI tool, these consumers will have increased feelings or self-efficacy. To put it more simply, they’ll feel like they’re more confident and capable in the task of complaining.

They’re testing this with experiments, using an AI tool/complaints portal they’ve developed with the help of their funding partner, the NSW Ombudsman.

So far, they’ve looked at approximately 1,000 consumers across English-dominant countries across the globe to test whether AI is effective in this scenario. What they’ve found is that it very much does.

Not only have they found this to be true for consumers with ESL but also those with English as their native language who see its benefits as a complaint-writing tool to help with the clarity and legitimacy of their complaint.

They’re now sending the AI-assisted complaints to complaints managers in a survey to see what their perceptions of these complaints are, asking questions such as ‘Do they differ from non-AI-assisted complaints?’ and ‘Would they have greater confidence in resolving them?

The Ombudsman has a vested interest in this research as it’s part of their charter to ensure consumers have the same access to the complaints process.

Are complaints a laughing matter?

Another area of research Christine is working on at the moment, also with Alicia Kulczynski and Margurite Hook, is around the use of humour in making and managing complaints—sharing what they find in the form of practical advice to organisations on how they can do this.

“The interesting thing is that humour can be really useful in building rapport and psychological comfort with consumers. It can make us feel quite relaxed and engaged with an organisation,” says Christine.

“It’s the matching and mirroring that can build comfort in people. It gives them the feeling that they have some connection with the complaint manager.”

However, their experiments have found that there’s a limit to where and how organisations should use humour in the complaints process.

“We recommend that organisations only use humour when instigated by the complainant, in other words, only when they use humour first. They should also avoid the use of humour for high severity complaints”.

A couple of examples she gives for high-severity complaints include health complaints and those in the food industry.

Observational versus direct complaining

In a previous paper, Christine also explored the area of observational complaining versus face-to-face or direct complaining.

Observational complaining occurs on public platforms, such as social media, where others can see the comments. In contrast, direct complaining involves communicating privately, like speaking to or emailing a manager.

As well as making the distinction between the two, she also talks about the fact that observational complaining is on the rise. People are now much more likely to share complaints on social platforms.

Christine explains that people often do this as there’s comfort in knowing there’s support from other consumers. There’s also an altruistic motivation: we want to warn other customers of a bad experience.

The takeaway is that organisations need to be actively engaging in observational channels to ensure people are heard, and complaints are dealt with in an effective manner.

From research to real-life benefits

What motivates Christine most about her work is the real-world impact and practical applications she can have. What she’s learning from her research is highly valuable to consumers and, in turn, to businesses and organisations across all sectors.

The next step in her current research around AI assisting in complaints is to find industry partners to work with and apply for an Australian Research Council Linkage grant.

“We’d like to apply to develop a prototype and actually have a portal or application that we would more fully develop and to be able to recommend to both public sector and private sector organisations.”

“We want to test it in real organisations and have those industry partners on board. Eventually, we’d like it to be best practice to have that type of application in complaint portals. Not for compulsory use, but as an option.”

Your go-to complaints expert

Christine enjoys engaging with Industry a great deal. In fact, she sees it as a crucial part of her work.

“I really don't see the point in doing research that doesn't have industry implications and applications. I want to get our research out there!”

Part of getting her research out there is developing the portal and working with industry. Another part is sharing their findings and research with a wider audience through the media and other channels.

A few years back, while doing her PhD, Christine spoke to Richard Glover on ABC National. She thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and the engagement it led to, with people ringing up and sharing their complaints stories.

More recently, she discussed how effectively handling consumer complaints can turn dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates, providing a unique angle on customer relationship management on the local podcast Branding Unlocked with Monica Warmsley and Josh Lawlor (S3, Ep5)

Christine is keen to do more media work and share her insights on her mission to ensure that everyone, including the vulnerable, gets better service outcomes. So, if you ever need an expert opinion on complaints, reach out!