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National Complaints Day
National Complaints Day first took place in the UK on Friday 13 February 2009 and is now expected to become an important occasion for mobilising consumer and organisational action.

It is scheduled to be a regular event, targeted at the date of Friday 13th, to recognise the central role of Complaints in society, for consumers and for organisations alike. A key feature is that it does not seek to favour one particular interest group over another - the recognition is that there is a joint accountability in the relationship to resolve complaints.

Inaugural National Complaints Day - Friday 13th February 2009
The first National Complaints Day in its present format was held in the UK on Friday 13th February 2009. The objective was to increase awareness of the important role that complaints hold and to support consumers and organisations.

The strap-line was "Turning Complaints into Gold". A dedicated microsite (http://www.nationalcomplaintsday.com) was created to support the event. A key metric was that there are an estimated 500 million complaints in the UK per annum, and that these represent an estimated annual economic value/ cost of £23 billion.

The event was supported by various organisations

• ComplaintCommunity.com - The leading free to use complaint management community serving consumers, companies and all others in the process.

• Customer Service Network (“CSN”) – CSN is one of the UK’s leading authorities in customer service with over 300 member organisations

• Shaping Tomorrow – A futures intelligence and knowledge management portal helps organisations better anticipate the future

• Business Link - Self-help portal of action-focused information for small and medium businesses, linking to all relevant ministries and departments.

The first National Complaints Day proved a success in promoting the issues of consumer dissatisfaction with organisational complaint management capabilities, and the challenges facing organisations with the emergence of social media customer channels. It was challenged that the event had too ambitious goals, and that it wasn’t ultimately a truly National event as the publicity was not sufficient to support a wider campaign (e.g. National Press). Participants asked that this become a regular event as it was recognised that this was only a start of a cultural programme amongst consumers and organisations alike.

Second National Complaints Day - Friday 13th November 2009
The second National Complaints Day is scheduled for Friday 13th November 2009. The objective again will be to increase awareness of the important role that complaints hold and to support consumers and organisations. The same microsite has been retained.

A sustained pre-event awareness campaign has been held, largely via social media.

At present no details of the events or supporters have been released.

Predecessors
Mali National Complaints Day : first held in 1994. On that day any Malian citizen can present complaints to the government with impunity. The last Mali National Complaints Day was in 2000.