Complaint Escalation SOP
Purpose. How Summit hears, classifies, and resolves complaints, and exactly when Dave Kowalski must be pulled in. Every complaint gets logged, owned by one named person, and answered fast. The worst outcome is not an angry customer; it is an angry customer who told us once, got silence, and told the internet instead. Pete owns this SOP; Rosa is usually the first ear.
Trigger. Any expression of dissatisfaction, through any channel: phone, SMS, email, Google review, a comment to a crew member on site, or a flag from the answering service.
Timing. Acknowledged same business day, always. Severity-specific response clocks are below.
Severity levels
| Level | What it looks like | First owner | Response clock | Dave involved? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 — Service friction | Missed update, crew arrived late, debris left behind, tone complaint, minor scheduling annoyance | Rosa | Acknowledge same day; resolve within 2 business days | No. Dave sees Level 1s only in the monthly complaint summary |
| Level 2 — Job-quality or money dispute | Punch-list item disputed after sign-off, leak after a repair, invoice disagreement, scope disagreement, damage attributed to a crew | Pete | Acknowledge same day; site visit or substantive answer within 2 business days; resolution plan within 5 | Dave is informed by Pete, and decides Level 2s that involve refunds over $500 or re-do work over one crew-day |
| Level 3 — Relationship or legal risk | Threat of legal action, insurance dispute, injury or property-damage claim, media or online blow-up brewing, any complaint about staff conduct | Dave, immediately | Dave (or Pete if Dave is unreachable) makes personal contact within 4 business hours | Yes, mandatory. Level 3 belongs to Dave from the first minute |
Classification instinct: if it can be fixed with an apology and a schedule, it is Level 1. If it costs real money or touches the quality of the work, it is Level 2. If a lawyer, an adjuster, or a reporter could plausibly enter the story, it is Level 3, and you do not wait to be sure.
Steps
- Capture it verbatim. (Owner: whoever hears it first. Tool: GHL note on the opportunity, tagged
complaint.) The customer's words, the channel, the date, and what they say they want. Crews on site: do not argue, do not admit fault, say "I want to get this to the right person today," and call Pete before leaving the driveway. - Classify and assign. (Owner: Rosa for anything arriving at the office; Pete for anything from the field. Timing: same business day.) Set the level, name the owner per the table, and log both in GHL. When torn between two levels, pick the higher one.
- Acknowledge. (Owner: the assigned owner. Timing: same business day.) A human calls or writes: we heard you, here is who owns this, here is when you will hear back. Never open with a defense of what happened.
- Investigate. (Owner: assigned owner.) Pull the GHL thread, the CompanyCam photo record, and the signed scope from the Google Drive job folder before forming a position. Pre-work and stage-milestone photos resolve most "the crew damaged X" disputes in minutes, in either direction.
- Decide and resolve. (Owner: per the table.) Fixes are scheduled like real jobs, on the production board, not squeezed in "when we can." Money: Rosa can waive up to $100 in fees on a Level 1; anything larger is Pete's call up to the Dave thresholds above. Never discuss warranty coverage determinations or insurance outcomes in the heat of a complaint; route those per Escalation Matrix.
- Close the loop. (Owner: assigned owner.) Confirm with the customer that the resolution landed, then log the outcome in GHL. If it started as a public review, the response follows Review Response Guide after, not before, the private contact.
- Feed the pattern file. (Owner: Pete. Timing: monthly.) Complaint themes go to the ops meeting and into Common Mistakes. Two complaints with the same root cause are a process bug, not a coincidence.
Hard rules
- No complaint waits on a debate about whose fault it is. Ownership first, forensics second.
- Nobody but Dave commits Summit to anything in a Level 3, in writing or verbally.
- Some judgment calls here still live in Dave's head; tightening this rubric is a tracked item in Knowledge Gaps Report.
Related
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