Why We Love Complaints

Karolis Duoba
Jun 20
3 min read

At first glance, “loving complaints” might sound counter intuitive. After all, who enjoys hearing what's gone wrong? But in public services - where trust, accountability, and real-world impact matter most - complaints are not a nuisance. They're a gift.

In fact, complaints may be the most honest, unfiltered feedback a public sector organisation will ever receive. They expose failure demand, flag systemic issues, and give a voice to those who might otherwise go unheard.

At GovMetric, we believe complaints are not just important - they’re essential.

Complaints: The Most Valuable Feedback You Can Get

Forget vanity metrics. In local government, housing, and social care, the true measure of citizen experience often comes from those who complain. And the evidence is striking:

The Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) upheld 80% of detailed complaints in 2023–24.
The Housing Ombudsman found maladministration in 73% of its decisions.
Cases of severe maladministration are rising rapidly, with over 850 determinations in a single year.

The overall Complaint volumes across housing and local government are surging.

What this tells us is simple: complaints are a barometer. When volumes rise and fault rates climb, the pressure is on - and rightly so. These are not isolated grumbles; they’re warning signs of broader issues.

As Michael King, former LGSCO, put it:

“One complaint can have immense power to change things for the better.”

So Why Aren’t We Acting on Them?

Despite the value they offer, many organisations struggle to act effectively on complaints. Why?

Lack of transparency: Some services have historically “low-balled” complaint figures, resolving issues informally to keep numbers down.
Siloed systems: Complaint data often sits apart from other customer insight tools, making trends hard to spot.
Manual processes: Staff are bogged down by compliance-heavy admin, not root cause analysis or resolution.
Cultural resistance: Too often, complaints are seen as a reputational threat instead of an opportunity to learn and improve.

These challenges prevent services from moving beyond reactive fixes to real, proactive improvement. This is where the foundations matter most.

Getting the Basics Right: Efficient, Effective, Compliant Complaint Handling

Before you can learn from complaints, you need to handle them well.

Good complaint handling means:

Capturing all dissatisfaction, not just formal grievances.
Acknowledging complaints swiftly and empathetically.
Responding in a timely, fair, and resolution-focused manner.
Learning and acting—closing the loop with complainants and internal teams alike.

The new statutory Complaint Handling Code for social landlords (from April 2024) puts these principles into regulation. Compliance isn’t optional—it’s now a baseline for trust and accountability.

Enter Octavia: Tech-Driven Complaint Handling That Works

At GovMetric, we know the burden that complaint handling places on stretched public service teams. That’s why we are building Octavia - an AI-enabled assistant designed to transform complaint handling from end to end.

Octavia supports councils and landlords by:

Capturing and categorising complaints at first contact.
Drafting compliant acknowledgements and responses.
Analysing themes and sentiment to spot systemic issues.
Summarising cases and lessons learned.
Tracking performance against deadlines and reporting standards.

This isn't about replacing people—it’s about empowering them. Octavia handles the repetitive admin, freeing officers to focus on judgment, empathy, and service improvement.

To Love Complaints Is To Listen, Act and Improve

Loving complaints doesn’t mean seeking them out - it means being ready for them. It’s about building systems and cultures that:

Welcome citizen feedback.
Act decisively on what it reveals.
Share learning to prevent repeat issues.
Show complainants they’ve been heard.

It’s no accident that organisations with higher satisfaction scores tend to have fewer Ombudsman cases. It’s because they treat complaints as fuel for improvement—not failure.

So yes, love complaints. Not because they’re easy - but because they matter.

Because every complaint is a citizen saying, “this isn’t working.” And in their honesty, they give you everything you need to make it better.

If you would like to discover some of our Customer Stories, highlighting real-world customer experience transformations within the public sector, click below.