PSE-203 Complaint Resolution & Service Recovery

Course Code: PSE-203

Pillar: Citizen-Centered Service Excellence

Course Overview: Complaints reveal where service expectations, communication, processes, or outcomes have broken down. When handled professionally, they can restore confidence, surface recurring problems, and provide evidence for improving public services.

Learners practise receiving and clarifying complaints, investigating responsibly, resolving or escalating within authority, communicating progress, and applying service-recovery principles while maintaining fairness, documentation, empathy, and accountability.

Learning Outcomes:

• Explain the role of complaints in improving public service quality.
• Receive citizen complaints professionally, respectfully, and objectively.
• Distinguish between complaints, inquiries, requests, appeals, and feedback.
• Investigate complaint issues using evidence, documentation, and procedural fairness.
• Communicate complaint progress, decisions, timelines, and next steps clearly.
• Apply service recovery techniques to restore citizen confidence.
• Escalate complex, sensitive, or high-risk complaints appropriately.
• Develop a practical complaint resolution and service recovery improvement plan.

Target Audience: Public servants working in citizen service, complaints, contact centres, administration, operations, service quality, communication, supervision, or any role responsible for resolving and learning from service issues.

Course-specific Learning Experience: Learners engage through focused video overviews, audio deep dives, study guides, practical examples, reflection prompts, workbook activities, applied tasks, discussion activities, knowledge checks, and end-of-module quizzes. Activities guide learners through complaint intake, clarification, investigation, escalation, resolution communication, service recovery, and recurrence prevention.

Course Structure: 5 modules / 20 lessons.

Special Feature: Every module concludes with a Putting It All Together audio deep dive that connects the key lessons and supports reflection and practical application.

Pathway Focus: Understand complaints. Restore confidence. Prevent recurrence.