Customer Complaints

The customer complaint record manages a complaint from the moment it arrives to the moment it is formally closed — through assessment, action tracking, and, where the cause runs deeper than the individual case, a link to a CAPA record.

A complaint and a nonconformity answer different questions. The complaint is about this customer's problem and their satisfaction with the resolution. The CAPA is about stopping it happening to the next customer.

Core fields

• Code — auto-generated, read-only once the record exists.
• Name — a short title for the complaint.
• Customer account type — classifies the complainant.
• Complaint category — from the complaint category list. Classifies what the complaint is about.
• Team leader — accountable for driving the record. Receives the open-approval and close-approval tasks.

Recorded during resolution

Field	Stage
Sufficiency note	Close progress report — the team's own judgement of whether the resolution is adequate.
Prepared by	Close progress report — who prepared it.
Sufficiency info	Close approval — the approver's judgement.
Assessment category	Close approval — from the assessment category list. Classifies the outcome, not the complaint.
Survey required	Close approval — whether a satisfaction survey should follow.
Closed at / closed by	Stamped automatically when close approval is granted.

note

The complaint category and the assessment category are deliberately separate lists. One describes what the customer complained about; the other describes how it turned out. Reporting on both is what shows whether particular complaint types are being resolved well.

Child records

Collection	Purpose
Actions	The work done to resolve the complaint. Each action has its own state machine.
Progress reports	Multi-cycle. What is known so far.
Close progress reports	Multi-cycle. What was done and what the result was.
Linked CAPAs	Nonconformity records raised from this complaint.

Linking a complaint to CAPA

When a complaint reveals a systemic problem, raise a nonconformity from it. The link is stored on the CAPA side and shown on both records.

The link is not cosmetic — it drives an automatic behaviour:

When a linked nonconformity is closed, the complaint is notified and can advance its own close progress report stage automatically.

This is what keeps the two records from drifting apart: the complaint cannot quietly close while its underlying CAPA is still open, and it does not sit waiting after the CAPA has finished.

Creating a complaint

1. Open Customer Complaints → Complaints and choose New.
2. Record the customer account type and the complaint category.
3. Write the name and the description of what the customer reported — in the customer's terms.
4. Assign a team leader.
5. Attach any correspondence or evidence.
6. Save as draft, then submit it for open approval.

tip

Record what the customer actually said before translating it into internal terminology. The original wording is what you will need if the complaint escalates, and it is often the only clue about what the customer really cares about.