Customer Complaint Form for Retail & E-commerce

# Customer Complaint Form - Retail & E-commerce

## Purpose
Provide on your website and to frontline staff to ensure all complaints are captured consistently and routed to the right team.

## When to Use
A structured complaint form that captures the issue, desired outcome, supporting evidence, and contact preferences for professional complaint handling.

## Instructions
1. Review the template below and familiarise yourself with the structure
2. Replace all [bracketed placeholders] with your retail & e-commerce business details
3. Customise the tone and formatting to match your brand
4. Save in your preferred tool (Zendesk or HubSpot)

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## Customer Complaint Form

**Purpose:** Capture all complaints consistently and route them to the right team for professional resolution, helping maintain customer trust and meet Australian Consumer Law obligations.

### Section 1: Your Contact Details
| Field | Type | Required | Validation | Placeholder |
|-------|------|----------|------------|-------------|
| Full Name | Text | Yes | Min 2 characters | Jane Smith |
| Email Address | Email | Yes | Valid email format | jane@email.com.au |
| Phone Number | Phone | No | Australian format | 04XX XXX XXX |
| Preferred Contact Method | Radio | Yes | - | Email / Phone / Either |
| Best Time to Contact | Dropdown | No | - | Morning (9am-12pm) / Afternoon (12pm-5pm) / No Preference |

### Section 2: Complaint Details
| Field | Type | Required | Validation | Placeholder |
|-------|------|----------|------------|-------------|
| Date of Incident | Date | Yes | Cannot be more than 12 months ago | DD/MM/YYYY |
| What is your complaint about? | Dropdown | Yes | - | Product Quality / Service Delivery / Billing or Pricing / Staff Conduct / Communication / Timeliness / Other |
| Order or Reference Number (if applicable) | Text | No | - | e.g., INV-2026-0123 |
| Location or Branch (if applicable) | Text | No | - | e.g., Sydney CBD Office |
| Staff Member Involved (if known) | Text | No | - | First name only is fine |
| Describe what happened | Textarea | Yes | Min 30 characters, Max 2000 | Please describe the issue in detail, including what you expected versus what occurred... |
| Have you contacted us about this before? | Radio | Yes | - | Yes / No |
| If yes, who did you speak to and when? | Text | No | Max 200 characters | Name and approximate date |

### Section 3: Desired Outcome
| Field | Type | Required | Validation | Placeholder |
|-------|------|----------|------------|-------------|
| What outcome would resolve this for you? | Checkbox (multi-select) | Yes | Min 1 selected | Apology / Refund / Replacement / Service Re-delivery / Policy Change / Explanation / Other |
| Please explain your desired outcome | Textarea | No | Max 500 characters | Tell us specifically what you would like us to do... |

### Section 4: Supporting Evidence
| Field | Type | Required | Validation | Placeholder |
|-------|------|----------|------------|-------------|
| Upload Photos, Screenshots, or Documents | File Upload | No | Max 5 files, 5MB each, PDF/JPG/PNG | Upload any supporting evidence |
| Additional Notes | Textarea | No | Max 500 characters | Any other information that may help us investigate... |

### Section 5: Acknowledgement
| Field | Type | Required | Validation | Placeholder |
|-------|------|----------|------------|-------------|
| I confirm the information provided is true and accurate | Checkbox | Yes | Must be checked | - |

### Conditional Logic
- If "Have you contacted us about this before?" = "Yes", show follow-up details field and escalate priority internally
- If "What is your complaint about?" = "Staff Conduct", route to HR Manager instead of general complaints queue
- If "What is your complaint about?" = "Billing or Pricing", route to Finance team

### Submission
- **Button text:** "Submit Complaint"
- **Confirmation message:** "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Your complaint has been logged and assigned reference number [Auto-generated]. We will acknowledge your complaint within 1 business day and aim to resolve it within 5 business days."
- **Notification:** Create ticket in support system, email complaints manager, send acknowledgement email to customer with reference number and expected timeline

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**Complexity:** simple | **Setup time:** 10 minutes | **Tools:** Zendesk, HubSpot, Zapier

Note: This template has been tailored for retail & e-commerce businesses in Australia. Adjust terminology and compliance references to match your specific context.