An email from a resident at eleven at night
A resident living above a row of shops emails your office late on a Sunday. For the third week running, a bin lorry woke her at ten past five on a Monday morning, emptying glass bottles from the pub bin below her window. She says the council will hear about it next time.
On Monday your office manager tries to work out what happened. Which round serves that pub? What time was the lift? Was it one of your vehicles at all, or another firm collecting from the restaurant next door? The driver says he always does that street early to beat the traffic. There is no record of the time.
The same week, a shop owner rings to complain that the driver left rubbish spilled across his doorway. Another complaint, another search.
Why complaints are hard to answer
Commercial collections happen early and in mixed areas where people live above businesses. Complaints are an ordinary part of the job, but most firms handle them without facts.
- Stop times are not recorded, so the office cannot say when a vehicle was at an address.
- Several firms collect in the same street, and complainants cannot tell them apart.
- Complaints arrive by email, phone and via customers, and are not logged in one place.
- The response depends on who answers, and changes to the round are not recorded.
- The same street or driver generates repeated complaints, but nobody sees the pattern.
What restrictions apply to your collection times at any site is for your agreements and advisers. The practical issue is not knowing what happened.
The cost of complaints without facts
Unanswered or badly answered complaints escalate, to customers, landlords and sometimes the council. A customer whose neighbours complain may be pressured to change provider. Staff time goes into investigating each complaint from scratch.
And the useful information in complaints is lost. A street that generates repeated noise complaints might only need a later slot. Spillage in one place might point to a particular bin that is too full every time.
How we log complaints against the round
What we build links every complaint to what your vehicles actually did.
- Complaints received by phone, email or web form are logged in one place with the address, date and time, and the complaint type: noise, early lift, spillage, blocked access, driver conduct, damage.
- The log looks up which of your rounds served that address or street on that day, and shows each stop time and position from the driver app or vehicle tracker.
- If no vehicle of yours was there at the time, the log says so, which helps when another firm is responsible.
- Photos taken by the driver at the stop, such as a spill cleared or an overfilled bin, are shown with the complaint.
- Each complaint is assigned to the round supervisor, with the response and any action recorded: driver spoken to, stop moved later in the round, customer advised.
- A monthly report shows complaints by type, street and round, so patterns are visible.
| Complaint type | Data shown | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| Early lift or noise | Stop time and position | Resequence round or change slot |
| Spillage | Stop photo, container status | Driver reminder, bin size review |
| Blocked road | Stop duration | Review stop timing |
| Not our vehicle | No stop recorded at that time | Explain, with evidence |
Monday morning with the complaint log
The resident's email is logged at nine. The log shows the pub was lifted at 05:08, 05:11 and 05:12 on the last three Mondays by the same round. The round supervisor looks at the sequence and moves the pub to the end of the first loop, after seven. The office replies to the resident explaining the change, and the pub is told as well.
The shop owner's spillage complaint shows the driver's photo of the bin overflowing before the lift. The account manager offers the shop a larger bin. Both complaints are closed with the actions recorded.
Are complaints answered without facts?
- You cannot say what time your vehicle was at a particular address.
- Complaints are handled by whoever takes the call, with no log.
- The same streets generate complaints repeatedly.
- You sometimes cannot tell if it was your vehicle at all.
- Round changes made after complaints are not recorded.