Customer has lied about me

[natel]

A customer did not attend an appointment and has now put in a false complaint about me and said he was not called back 6 times. I called the customer and there was no answer and all the other call backs I have never been informed of. I have been covering this task for another team due to staffing issues.

I am furious that a lie would be made up about me when another team should be doing this work but have not due to staffing issues. The customer could not even be bothered to attend the appointment.

There is a form with the complaint saying what can be learned, but I have done nothing wrong. I feel like telling my manager as otherwise he could be lied to as well. I am still covering this task for another team while their member of staff is off but I don’t want to now if I am going to be lied about.

I wonder what is his excuse for lying? Difficult to tell if we don't know what area you work in (if you can).

Surely your answer to what can be learned from this is that teams need to be adequately staffed for the job?

Thank you so much for that. I will definitely put in my response that it should have been for the other team to action with adequate staffing.

In an unblemished record, one customer complaining is something any decent manager would accept.

Customers will complain about anything or make things up. I've seen it many times. One of my old staff was complained about that they were rude to the customer 10 minutes earlier...they were on holiday. The customer had spoken with them before and knew their name. Logs showed the customer had not phoned previously that day at all.

Be honest with your manager, that is all you have to do.

And that a non-attendance should get call-backs from either the team-leader or a different team member - 2nd call with no answer gets escalated to team leader.

Keep records of callbacks, even if it's done automatically.

Customers/clients lie. It's what they do - if you have a separate record, then it's not as hard for management to assume that you're the person lying.

Sufficient dated notes or logs will taken to show these steps were taken.

(Basically you are all covering your behinds by passing it to someone else and timestamping/getting log information to show you all did try to contact the customer.)

You called him back and did your job. That’s it.

Working with customers is often like this. Needless complaints. Either because they are vindictive or because they don’t think you did what you should have. In these cases they have often simply made up the process they think you should follow.You did your job, don’t worry.

If it’s understaffed that’s something that can change. And getting someone else to do the calls may help. Are the outgoing calls traceable? If not, suggest a new phone system where they are traceable so you can back yourself up. They probably won’t do it, but it fills the form in

I wouldn’t worry customer complaints are part of working life now as everyone complains at the drop of a hat.

Give a factual response and don’t dwell on it anymore. Play the game and say you have learnt something so management or whoever can tick a box. Maybe something to do with communicating to the other team or something along those lines. Come across as if you are empathetic to the complainants it points doesn’t mean you have to agree with them!

I would take this at face value and would submit the form saying

• Entire team to escalate resource shortages to management or if they persist to CEO/sales director or whomever
• Review process for passing on telephone messages to appropriate team member
• Revisit complaints process as a whole.

The form is certain to be lost!

Isn’t the customer complaining ( lying? ) that a procedure wasn’t followed rather than complaining about you specifically?

You recorded your call attempt I take it?

Is this a public facing complaint (as in could other clients also see what this client has written) or is it something that is only visible internally?

Depending on which of these it is, I'd either contact them asking them to withdraw their comments as it could be seen as defamation as it is incorrect or if it's internal I'd be advising my manager that these claims are false and show where they are false to your manager and ask them what the next steps should be.

Can’t you just tell your manager the patient is lying? I’d just write on the form that you did not receive any messages to call him back, upon investigation no one else took a message from him so perhaps he was calling the wrong number?

This used to drive me mad - feel your pain.

Do you have a notes section on your customer/client file? On our screens it had a little general notes bit and I used this for noting down call chasers. Appointment reminder call made to Mr X at 10:59 on date - no response, left voicemail asking him to call back. That kind of thing.

Came in very handy if there was a complaint as I could point to the notes and ask my manager to check the outbound call records for that date and time, and they'd see who was being truthful.

Double check you had the right telephone number.
Write the dates and times you rang as surely the company will have a log of calls out?

pass it back to the department it belongs with. Their lack of staff is not your problem

I work in the NHS & have to contact patients on a daily basis - ALWAYS make a computer entry that you have attempted to call with a date & time!
If I’m cancelling a clinic last minute and have to send a text as well as leave a message, I make a note that the text delivery confirmation is received too.
You wouldn’t get your breath at some of the phone calls we take……..

Hi OP is it a reflective account where you have to write what you think you did wrong etc? I think it’s important to be truthful with your manager and explain your that you called the number multiple times.

I’d try and avoid anything that looks like blaming other colleagues. Was the customers telephone number correct? Can you produce evidence of making the calls (eg via switchboard)

Try not to worry or get angry with colleagues, good luck :)

Hi all, I did not realise people had replied since! Thank you all for your input. I wrote a massive reflection account then then customer and his family came in. I resolved it all for them and they said they never asked for a complaint to be put in.

I know who raised the complaint and it was a woman who always has 6 months sick leave every year, her colleagues said she is never really ill. She is quite toxic and and sarcastic. I have my report and will be telling my manager at my 1-1 as it is concerning staff think it is ok to raise complaint when the customer never asked to.

The IT manager also advised phone call logs are only kept for 90 days. What an absolute shambles. Evidence is destroyed. Evidence is needed if someone cannot be bothered to log incoming calls for call backs.