A customer complaint register is one list that records every complaint a business receives: who complained, about what, who is handling it and whether it is closed. It matters because a complaint that lives in one person's phone or a WhatsApp chat is a complaint that can be lost. The format below suits manufacturers, distributors, dealers, service companies and any business whose staff hear complaints in the field.
The columns a complaint register needs
The register has to answer three questions at any time: what is open, who owns it, and how long has it been open. Every column below exists to answer one of those.
| Column | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Complaint no. | A unique reference the customer and your team can both quote. | CMP-0318 |
| Date received | Starts the clock. Without it you cannot measure how long anything takes. | 30-09-2026 |
| Customer | Use the same spelling every time so repeat complainers show up. | Anand Hardware, Belagavi |
| Product | Shows which products generate the most complaints. | Flexi pipe 25 mm |
| Invoice / batch no. | Ties the complaint to a specific supply, so a bad batch can be found. | INV-4471 / B-09 |
| Issue | What the customer actually said, in one or two plain lines. | Joint leaking after two days |
| Severity | Low, medium or high. Decides what is handled first. | High |
| Received by / assigned to | Who heard it and who now owns it. Ownership is what gets it closed. | Sneha Kulkarni / Rahul Desai |
| Action taken | What was done, not just what was promised. | Replacement dispatched |
| Status | Open, in progress or closed. The column you filter on every morning. | In progress |
| Closure date | Gives resolution time: closure date minus date received. | 01-10-2026 |
A filled-in example
Three complaints from one day, from a pipes and tanks distributor. Only one is closed, and the register makes that obvious at a glance.
| No. | Customer | Issue | Severity | Assigned to | Status | Closed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMP-0318 | Anand Hardware | Joint leaking after two days | High | Rahul Desai | In progress | - |
| CMP-0319 | Sai Enterprises | Tank lid does not fit | Low | Rahul Desai | Closed | 01-10-2026 |
| CMP-0320 | Patil Traders | Two elbows short in carton | Medium | Meera Joshi | Open | - |
Rules that keep a complaint register honest
- Log it the day it is raised. A register filled in at month end is a history, not a control.
- One complaint, one row, one owner. Two people "looking into it" means nobody is.
- Record the customer's words. Paraphrasing turns "leaks after two days" into "quality issue", which cannot be acted on.
- Add a photo where possible. A photo of the damaged product or carton settles most arguments about what arrived.
- Close with a date, and ask the customer. "Closed" means the customer agrees it is fixed, not that your team stopped working on it.
- Set a response target per severity, and write it at the top. For example, "High: call the customer the same day; Medium: action within a week; Low: within a month". The numbers are your choice, not a standard. A target you can measure against is what makes a late complaint visible.
- Review open items weekly. Sort by date received and start with the oldest.
What to look at in the weekly review
Once complaints are in one sheet, four filters do most of the work:
- Status is not Closed, oldest first. Anything past its target gets a name and a date.
- Severity is High. These should never be more than a day or two from someone's attention.
- Sort by product or batch. Two complaints on one batch in a week is a quality signal, not a coincidence.
- Sort by customer. A dealer who complains three times has stopped trusting the supply and may be about to stop ordering.
Who fills it in, and when
Whoever hears the complaint logs it, the same day, even if they cannot solve it. One person, usually in customer service or operations, owns the register, assigns each complaint and reviews open items weekly. Closure is recorded by the person who fixed it, and confirmed with the customer.
Common mistakes
- Complaints told to a salesperson or delivery driver that never reach the register.
- Giving everything the same priority, so a leaking product waits behind a missing sticker.
- No product or batch column, so repeat problems with one batch look like unrelated one-offs.
- Marking complaints closed when a replacement is dispatched, rather than when it arrives.
The real problem: complaints heard in the field
Most complaints are not raised in an office. They are told to a salesperson at a shop counter, a technician on a job, or a driver at a gate. Each of them has to remember it and type it up later, and some never do. The register is only as complete as the least motivated person's memory.
With vBol, the person who hears the complaint saves one WhatsApp number as a contact and sends a short voice note, and a photo if there is one, in their own language, including Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil or Telugu:
vBol transcribes it, extracts the fields, and reads the record back on WhatsApp with buttons to confirm or fix a field. Nothing is written until the sender confirms. Complaint is a built-in record type in vBol, with customer, complaint, severity (low, medium or high), product and photo. The confirmed row goes into your Google Sheet, Excel workbook on OneDrive or SharePoint, or Ekatm ERP, with the photo attached. Fields such as complaint number, assigned to and closure date can be added by Vritti when your record type is set up with you. Every evening at 7 PM managers get one WhatsApp message with what was filed and by whom. It is free for 30 days (up to 5 confirmed reports per person per day), then ₹199 per user per month for teams of up to 100 users, with a custom plan for larger teams.
Want to start on a spreadsheet? Download the free template on this page. It has the columns above, dropdowns for severity, status and customer satisfaction, and example rows you can overwrite. If complaints usually lead to a technician visit, the service report format covers the visit itself.
Frequently asked questions
What is a customer complaint register?
A complaint register is a single list where every customer complaint is logged with a number, the customer, the product, the issue, who is handling it and its status until closure. It gives the business one place to see what is open and how long it has been open.
What should a complaint register contain?
The complaint number, date, customer, product, issue, severity, who received it, who it is assigned to, the action taken, status and closure date. Add the invoice or batch number if you sell products that can be traced.
How long should it take to close a customer complaint?
There is no universal number, so set your own target for each severity level and write it at the top of the register. What matters is that every complaint has a closure date and that anything past its target is reviewed every week.
Why record the closure date and whether the customer was satisfied?
The closure date tells you how long complaints really take to resolve, and the satisfaction check tells you whether closed actually means fixed. Complaints closed by the company but not accepted by the customer often come back.