How to collect customer complaints: Best practices + free templates

When it comes to customer complaints, our first instinct is to see them in a negative light. But actually, customer complaints are a way to check the quality of your products. No matter the industry, if a product doesn't meet customer standards, it will hold back your business's growth and raise doubts about its reliability.

That's why it's really important to listen to customer complaints and make them feel valued. In this article, you will learn what a customer complaint form is, why to collect customer complaints and how to create a free customer complaint form online without coding by using the form builder forms.app. Additionally, you will get pro tips to create better ones for your business.

What is a customer complaint form?

Basically, it includes contact information such as full name, phone number, current address and email address, date of complaints, complaint fields to specify detailed complaints about complaints and signature.

Consumers can easily fill out the form and help business owners understand deeply what the complaint is about and see what is missing apart from products and services. Collecting complaints from users or buyers who already experienced the product or service gives you great information about customer satisfaction and the opportunity to develop your product or service to grow your business.

Why to collect customer complaints

People mostly tend to buy a service or product if there is a resolved problem with customer service. When customers voice their concerns, it's a great opportunity to demonstrate outstanding customer service and turn dissatisfied customers into happy ones. Customers agreed (83%) that they feel more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve their complaints. 

Reasons to use customer complaints

For that reason, the importance of customer complaint surveys cannot be ignored. We have listed some points that will convince you below: 

🤝 Enhance customer satisfaction: If you run your business in a customer-orientated manner, it is important to listen to your customers and solve their problems in a quick way. Collecting complaints from consumers and solving them will enhance customer satisfaction.

⬆️ Increase brand trust and loyalty: Consumers may have complaints about a product or service for many reasons. Resolving customer complaints will increase brand trust and loyalty.

📉 Reduce customer loss: It is more expensive to find a new customer than to retain an existing customer. People tend to purchase products or services repeatedly if their complaints are resolved quickly. 

✨ Improve customer experience: Knowing your customers' complaints and resolving them will help you understand customer experience in your business. Understanding your customers will improve the customer experience in your business.

🔥 Help avoid making the same error twice: Through the customer complaint form, you can understand the missing part in your product or service and help develop your product or service based on customer complaints. Eventually, you will not make the same mistakes twice in your product or service.

How to create a customer complaint form (without coding)

To understand your customer experience in your business, it is essential to collect necessary information about complaints through the form. Creating a sample customer complaint form will increase your customer service efficiency and collect consumer complaints easily. To do this, you need a free online tool like forms.app that allows you to collect all necessary information about complaints.

You need to know how to create a customer complaints form sample that your customer can easily fill out. Following the steps below can help you to create a better one on the forms.app.

1- Login or create a new account

Login to your account

You can easily sign up to forms.app, or if you have an account, you can log in immediately. We know that your time is precious, so you can also log in via Google, Facebook, and Apple accounts.

2- Select a free template

You can start from scratch if you want to decide on every element from the start. If you would rather save time, you can select from our user-friendly customer complaints form template for free to quickly get your form up and running. This way, you can customize the details that matter most to you. In accordance with your business needs, you can create a customer complaint form for the food industry or provide an example of a customer complaint form.

Choose a beginning option

You can also take advantage of the fast usage of AI. You can simply create a customer complaint form using forms.app AI form generator. 

3- Add your own questions & essential fields

The questions in this section are the most valuable aspect here. Regarding the questions, you can use the ones you created in accordance with business needs, or you can check the ones we provided inside the templates to get ideas. You can also check the SaaS customer survey questions, and you can use the questions according to your business needs.

Add the essential fields

Once you start creating your form, you can find the file upload section inside the fields, and you can add it easily to gather all supportive documentation. Besides, you can add a date and time section so your complainants can select the apply date easily. Also, you can add a signature section to make the form legal at the end of the form.

4- Change how your form looks

Change the design of your form

Every business has a distinct color scheme and typography. You can customize the appearance of your form fields to reflect your brand's requirements. You can also add a logo and change the background and theme. By selecting the customize section, you can change the theme to your liking by adjusting font style, text color, and brightness.

5- Connect to databases

Use integrations

The Connect Tab allows you to connect your form to a database. For analysis and reporting, you can connect with Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, ActiveCampaign, etc. For customer support, you can connect your form with WhatsApp, messenger, etc. You can find various database fields that match your preferences.

6- Customize the notification settings

Customize the email notifications

Another useful tool is to tap the settings button, and you will see notification settings in this field. These settings allow you to receive emails when consumer finish their form. It automatically sends notifications so that customer service can streamline the complaint process easily and allow you to make real-time decisions about products and services, and they can respond to customers quickly.

7- Share the form

Share your form

At the final stage, you can choose to embed it on your website or share it across all digital platforms like social media. You may also set up privacy choices like public, limited, and private in the settings. Additionally, you can choose how the form appears on your website when you share the form. Also, you can send your form by email or make a QR code to make it more technological and embed code your website.

5 Pro tips while creating a customer complaint form

For continuity and to grow your business to the next level, you need to show your customers that their complaints matter and you are heard by the business. It is essential to create a customer complaint form to gather complaints from the customer. You need to create an efficient complaint form to collect information and offer a great experience to your customers. 

Expert tips for customer complaint forms

To make the process simple and easy to use, there are a few things to remember when creating a customer complaint form. You need to follow some basic steps to create one, but if you want to make a pro one, these are the pro tips to follow:

✨ Make it simple: If you demand too many things about customer complaints, it will make them uncomfortable during the process and make the process hard to finish.

ℹ️ Ask for detailed contact information: It is critical to know your customers' detailed contact information when you solve problems and want to contact them back.

➕ Add supportive documentation section:  Customers would like to add some supportive documents that approve their claims. Add a supportive documentation section to gather all information from the customer.

📩 Add a message box for the complainants: Customers may not express their complaints through the questions you put into your form. Add an extra message field to allow them to express their concerns and complaints about the product or service.

🖊️ Add signature section: A signature section will make the form more legal. Both customer and owner agree with the terms and conditions If you put the signature section at the end of the form.

Key points to take away

For many reasons, the customer may not be satisfied with your product and service. Trying to understand the reasons for this and the things that cause it by not ignoring it will ensure the continuity of your business. 

It's important to take the time to listen to customer complaints and address any issues quickly. This can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, showing your customers that you value their concerns. Also, it's a great way to build stronger relationships with them.

So far, in our article, you have learned what a customer complaint form is, why to collect customer complaints and how to create a customer complaint form by using the online form creator forms.app. Additionally, you get pro tips to create a better one for your business.