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Complaint Category Definitions

Complaint categories classify what the customer complained about. The list is hierarchical and can be scoped to organization units, which is what routes an incoming complaint to the right team.

This list describes the problem. The assessment category list describes the outcome. Keep them separate — reporting on the pair is where the value is.

Purpose​

  • Routing. Categories scoped to organization units send a complaint to the team that can resolve it.
  • Trend analysis. Recurring complaint categories are the earliest visible signal of a systemic problem.
  • Consistency. Everyone taking complaints classifies them the same way.

Fields​

  • Code
    Auto-generated and unique. Read-only once the record exists.

  • Name
    The category title. Example: Product Defect, Late Delivery, Incorrect Quantity, Documentation Error, Service Quality.

  • Description
    Optional detail describing what belongs in this category.

  • Parent category
    Optional. Makes this a sub-category. The system prevents circular references.

  • Organization units
    The organization units this category is associated with — the routing mechanism.

  • Active
    Inactive categories are no longer offered on new complaints. Existing complaints keep theirs.

Structuring the list​

Product
  ├─ Dimensional Defect
  ├─ Surface Defect
  └─ Functional Failure
Delivery
  ├─ Late Delivery
  ├─ Incorrect Quantity
  └─ Damaged in Transit
Documentation
  ├─ Missing Certificate
  └─ Incorrect Documentation
Service
  ├─ Response Time
  └─ Communication

Keep the tree shallow — two levels is normally the right depth. A person taking a complaint on the phone will not navigate a four-level taxonomy accurately.

Authorization and Access Control​

Creating and editing complaint categories is restricted by role-based permissions and is normally reserved for quality administrators.

tip

Name categories in the customer's language, not the engineering department's. "Late Delivery" is what the customer said; "Logistics Schedule Adherence Deviation" is what somebody translated it into, and it will be classified inconsistently forever.