Customer complaints

Breww's complaint log gives you one place to record what a customer has told you went wrong, work it through to a resolution, and report on what goes wrong most often. Complaints can be tied to the order, product and batch involved, so a recurring problem with one batch or one product is easy to spot.

Complaints can only be logged against customers, not leads.

Permissions

Two permissions control access:

Members of the Sales and Deliveries system groups hold both. If you use custom groups, add the permissions to them yourself. See User groups and permissions.

Some actions also need the Sales permission, because they reach into sales records. Raising or linking a credit note, and opening an ullage from a complaint, both need it.

Finding your complaints

Go to Customers -> View -> Complaints. The menu item carries a badge showing how many complaints are open (those that are New or In progress).

The complaint list can be searched, filtered with BrewwQL, sorted, exported and saved as a custom list, like other lists in Breww.

You can also jump straight to a filtered view of the list from the record you're looking at:

• A customer's page, under More actions -> View complaints
• An order, under Order actions -> View complaints
• A product's page, under Actions -> View complaints
• A drink's page, under Actions -> View complaints
• A batch's page, under Actions -> View complaints

On a drink, the list shows complaints where either the chosen batch or the chosen product belongs to that drink, so complaints logged without a batch are still included.

Logging a complaint

Use the New complaint button on the complaint list, or start from the record the complaint is about:

• A customer's page, under New -> Log a complaint
• An order, under Order actions -> Log a complaint
• A delivery, using the Log a complaint button

Starting from one of these pre-fills the customer (and the order, where relevant) and locks that field, so you don't have to find it again.

The wizard has six steps.

Who is complaining?

Choose the Customer, then choose what the complaint is about:

• Product complaints are about something the customer bought
• Service complaints are about how something, such as an order, was handled

This choice decides what the rest of the wizard requires, so it's worth getting right.

Which order is it about?

Product complaints must be linked to the order the product was bought on. For service complaints the order is optional, so you can log a complaint about something that isn't tied to a single order.

Which product is it about?

Product complaints must name a product. If an order was chosen on the previous step, only products on that order are offered. For service complaints the product is optional.

Which batch is it about?

Choosing a batch is always optional. Breww uses your traceability records to offer only the batches that actually went out on the deliveries matching what you have chosen so far, so the list is usually short and accurate. If nothing matches, you can continue without a batch.

Recording the batch is what makes it possible to report on complaints by batch and by drink later, so it's worth choosing one when you can.

Complaint details

Choose a Category if you use them, and write what the customer has told you.

Your message becomes the first entry in the complaint's log, labelled as the customer's own report so it stands apart from the internal comments added later. It cannot be edited afterwards, but you can add as many comments as you need.

Only the categories that apply to the complaint type you chose are offered, so a category set up for service complaints will not appear on a product complaint.

If you hold the Manage customer complaints permission, the green + button beside the category list creates a new category without leaving the wizard.

Summary

Check everything before logging, then use Log complaint. The complaint is given the next number for your brewery and you're taken straight to it.

Working on a complaint

The complaint page

The top of the page summarises the complaint in three cards:

• Complaint - the customer, type, category and current status
• Related to - the order, product, batch, the drink itself and the credit note, each with a button through to the record
• Timeline - who logged it, when, and when it was resolved

Below that are the ullages linked to the complaint, an area for images and files (useful for photos of the affected stock), and the complaint log itself.

Adding a comment

Use Add comment to record progress, what the customer has said since, or what you have agreed to do.

Comments cannot be edited or deleted once added, so that the complaint keeps a full audit history. If you need to correct something, add another comment saying so.

Changing the status

Use Change status to move a complaint between the four statuses:

A comment is required when you resolve or close a complaint, so the reason is always on record. Breww stamps the resolved date at that point. If you later move the complaint back to New or In progress, the resolved date is cleared.

Every status change is added to the complaint log along with any comment you wrote.

Taking action on a complaint

The Take action menu on a complaint brings the tools you're most likely to need to the complaint itself.

Ullaging affected stock

Take action -> Ullage a container opens the customer's ullage page with the complaint attached. Breww narrows the containers and non-returnables shown to those matching the complaint's order, product and batch, so you're picking from the stock the customer is actually complaining about rather than everything they hold. Use Show all containers at this customer if you need to look wider, and Only show containers matching the complaint to narrow it again.

Where the complaint names an order, the non-returnables from that order are shown however old it is, ignoring the usual look-back window.

Any ullage you create from here is linked to the complaint automatically, listed in the complaint's Ullages table, and recorded in its log. See Ullaging lost beer for what ullaging does to your stock and duty.

Raising or linking a credit note

Take action -> Raise a credit note opens the new credit note page with the customer already filled in and locked. Where the complaint's order has been invoiced and is in the same currency as the customer, the original invoice details are filled in too. The finished credit note is linked to the complaint automatically.

A complaint can have one credit note at a time. If it already has one, use Take action -> Change credit note instead, which lets you pick a different credit note for that customer or leave the field blank to unlink the current one. Link a credit note does the same job where a credit note already exists and you only need to connect it.

Linking and unlinking are both recorded in the complaint log, and the complaint is listed on the credit note's own page so the connection is visible from both sides.

Linking an ullage that already exists

If the ullage was raised before the complaint, open the ullage, use Edit, and choose the complaint in the Complaint field. Clearing that field unlinks it again. Both are recorded in the complaint log, and the linked complaint is shown on the ullage page.

Complaint categories

Categories classify complaints by what went wrong, such as "Off flavour", "Damaged in transit" or "Late delivery". Choosing one when logging a complaint is what lets you report on your most common problems later.

Go to Customers -> Settings & tools -> Complaint categories, or find them under the Customers section of the Settings dashboard. You need the Manage customer complaints permission.

Each category has:

• A Name, which must be unique
• An Applies to setting of Product complaints, Service complaints or Both product & service complaints, which controls where the category is offered when logging a complaint

The list shows how many complaints use each category. If you try to delete a category that is in use, Breww refuses and tells you how many complaints are using it, so edit it instead if the name needs changing.

Categories created with the green + button inside the complaint wizard apply to both complaint types. Edit the category afterwards if you want to narrow it.

Reporting on complaints

Alongside the complaint list's own filtering and export, complaints are available in both custom report tools. See Reporting via the Aggregate Report Builder and Raw Data Explorer.

Aggregate report builder: choose the Customer complaints data source. It counts complaints, by created date or resolved date, grouped by customer, category, status, complaint type or drink. Grouping by category over the last 12 months is a quick way to see what goes wrong most often.

Raw data explorer: Customer complaints appears under Customers & suppliers, giving you every field on a complaint plus everything linked to it, such as the customer, order, product, batch and credit note.

Records that cannot be deleted

Once a complaint refers to something, that record has to stay, so the complaint keeps its context:

• An order with complaints against it cannot be fully deleted
• A product with complaints against it cannot be deleted
• A planned batch with complaints against it cannot be deleted
• A credit note linked to a complaint cannot have its customer changed

Categories behave the same way, as described above.