Had you there, eh ?

The BBC got 465 made-up complaints between June and September last year, as once again the Trust decided to test performance by using "mystery shoppers" from ICM, at a cost of £40k. As if there weren't enough real complainers to survey.

The change over time is that 75% of complaints now come in via email (which is amusingly also known at Auntie as "webform") - and the contents of replies, from BBC Audience Services, production departments and indies are not improving. Satisfaction levels show 60 per cent ‘extremely satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ compared with 71 per cent in 2011.

Here's some naming and shaming bits from the full report.

2 out of 290 email (webform) complaints directed to Audience Services did not receive a response at any point. Investigations conducted after fieldwork reveal that they were classified as complaints but then passed onto BBC Sport Interactive and then treated as comments which did not require a reply.

11 of the 20 email complaints made to BBC Production Departments and Independent Production Companies did not receive a response at any point. Investigations conducted after fieldwork have provided the following explanations for unanswered complaints:
 – Email accounts being left unmonitored;
 – Usual procedures not being followed;
 – Trivial complaints not being judged serious enough to warrant a response;
 – Email not being the usual channel for complaints;
 – Clerical or administrative errors.

Trustees noted that two complaints passed to BBC Online were closed without being dealt with. Trustees had noted in their work on appeals brought to the Trust that some complaints sent to BBC Online divisions were not being replied to. This is unsatisfactory and the Executive has confirmed it is reviewing the handling of certain complaints about website content to improve consistency of handling. The Executive will report back to the Trust on this later in 2014.