ALERT!
If there are urgent matters going on in your mobile home park, contact the proper authorities. Any immediate serious threat to the health and safety of citizens should be reported to the park management and the respective government authorities. This series of posts about complaints is not about how to respond to emergencies. These posts are about chronic neglect, failure to maintain. See slumlord business model.
A multipart a series. Also see:
How to Escalate Mobile Home Park Complaints – First, Firmly Establish the Problem
The Mobile Home Park Complaint Process – Start With Good Faith
All mobile home parks are places where residents seek to fill an essential human need – the need for a reliable and affordable place to live. Safe and stable neighborhoods are crucial for civilization’s progress. Neighborhood quality should be a serious concern for both the residents of a community and the public.
In mobile home parks, a good landlord will maintain a customer-oriented system where residents feel they can freely discuss neighborhood issues and ask for necessary improvements. Customers should feel encouraged and welcome to contribute feedback to the business they are dependent upon. Customers should be able to file their complaints in good faith and the landlord should handle them in good faith.
Good business people value customer feedback. A good feedback process includes a formal complaint filing system. A good complaint system has established procedures for the timely processing of matters brought to it. The purpose of such a system is to bring attention to potentially neglected problems. Responsible employees can work to solve the problem or, at least, find an acceptable compromise.
Customers who lodge complaints should be able to track their progress through the system and check on their current status. They should be able to contact the persons responsible for resolving the complaint and get the criteria used for decision-making.
Features of a Customer-Oriented Complaint Filing System in Mobile Home Parks
Here’s how a good complaint-processing system looks:
- Customers should feel welcomed and encouraged to give feedback – make formal complaints or requests for improvements with no fear of reprisal
- The feedback process should be readily available and easy to use
- Complaints should be documented and the process clearly described. The documentation should be readily available to residents
- Customers should be able to get timely status reports about the progress of their complaint
- Customers (residents) should know who, by name, is making the decisions about their complaint, and the evaluation criteria used
- Customers should be able to easily contact the decision-makers at any stage in the process
- If the solution given (provided) is not satisfactory, a reasonable explanation should be provided in writing
- A reasonable schedule and due date should be given for when the homeowners can expect the problem to be resolved.
- Written explanations will be provided for any rejection of complaints and/or changes to the schedule
- Customers should be able to grade the responsiveness of their landlord by poll and the results made publicly available
- A polling and ranking system, such as a “star” system, for ranking customer service will be maintained on the park’s website
Described above are elements of a formal complaint-handling system established by a park owner. It establishes the stages your complaint passes though. You and your neighbors know the complaint system exists and how to use it. The complaint system is not a mysterious “black box” but is transparent about the progress being made.
Example of transparency – giving customers a process flowchart
Click to enlarge
Source: EdrawMax
Because different complaints require different responses, companies have a system for sorting complaints. The complaints are sent to the people that have the ability to resolve them. Sometimes money needs to be appropriated and events scheduled to fix the problem. But any delays should be explained clearly and revised completion dates given in good faith.
Benefits of a Good Complaint Processing System
When a complaint system works well, regardless of its outcome, the customers are more apt to trust the business because they feel they are being heard and taken seriously. Good complaint handling can result in higher customer satisfaction and help smooth business operations.
If your mobile home park has a complaint form, then use it to file your complaint. Keep a copy and make sure that all relevant items are filled out. Check that the form includes the necessary details: the who, what, when, where, why and how. If needed, add your own page to the form that includes the missing items (to be covered in detail in later posts).
You can use the bullet points above to compare against your own experience when filing complaints. No system is perfect, but a customer-oriented business will have most of the above features.
Track the progress of your complaint through the system and rank the quality of the result. If everything is 5-star, congratulations! If your repeated experience continues to be unsatisfactory you may continue reading the posts to follow.
In future posts, we discuss how to use both formal and informal complaint systems including good-faith efforts, good documentation, escalation procedures, and outside resources for help.
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