The blog for Complaint and
Customer Service Management

A customer complains about their airline. Shortly afterwards, someone claiming to be customer service offers help. What appears to be a quick solution can be a targeted fraud attempt. Security researchers at Check Point have investigated a scheme in which criminals use public customer complaints to obtain personal data and credit card information.

When a complaint receives the wrong response

Delayed flights, lost luggage and outstanding refunds are common reasons for complaints about airlines. Some travellers contact the provider directly; others express their frustration on social media.

Fraudsters use these public posts as their starting point.

According to IT security company Check Point, criminals monitor complaints on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X. They then respond using fake support profiles resembling the airlines' official accounts.

The original post already tells the fraudsters about the customer's problem, allowing them to respond specifically. They often offer to resolve the issue quickly or arrange a refund.

The conversation then moves to private communication channels such as WhatsApp.

From a service request to data theft

The investigation describes several variations of this scheme. In one documented case, a customer was promised compensation of US$1,200. In other cases, links led to fake forms requesting personal information and credit card details.

The perpetrators exploit a particular aspect of the situation: the customer really does have an unresolved problem and expects a response from the company.

Unlike conventional phishing messages, the initial contact therefore begins with a specific, publicly documented customer issue.

According to Check Point, thousands of fake support accounts were identified, with hundreds of new profiles reportedly appearing every day.

Why complaints are particularly attractive

Public complaints often contain a surprising amount of information. They can reveal which company is involved, which service is being disputed and what solution the customer hopes to obtain.

This information allows fraudsters to tailor messages to the individual case.

Customer expectations add to the risk. Someone already waiting for a refund, or who has repeatedly tried to make contact without success, may pay particular attention to a concrete offer of help.

The supposed support profile does not even need to be especially sophisticated. A suitable profile picture, a similar account name and a response at the right time can create a credible impression.

A challenge for customer communication

The case extends beyond airlines. Similar situations are conceivable wherever customers report problems publicly and companies offer support through social networks.

Two different communication environments meet: publicly visible initial contact and the internal handling of a customer case.

While other users can see a public response, subsequent communication often takes place through private messages, email or other service channels.

For companies, this creates an additional challenge in assigning customer issues and making official communication channels recognisable.

Handovers between service channels also matter. A case may begin on social media, then be recorded by customer service and ultimately handled by a specialist department.

A centrally managed service process allows these processing steps to be assigned to a case and documented. Whether contact really originates from the company must, however, be independently verifiable.

A genuine service case becomes the basis for fraud

The scheme documented by Check Point illustrates a particular form of social engineering. Rather than sending messages at random, the perpetrators respond to genuine complaints and use the information already available to deceive customers.

The case also highlights the growing complexity of customer communication across channels. Public complaints, personal contact and internal case handling create different touchpoints that need to remain understandable to both the customer and the company.

Source: TechRadar – Scammers pose as airline customer support to help with your complaints, and then steal your credit card info

Customer service processes become faster and better when unnecessary handovers, follow-up questions, searches and manual routines disappear from the workflow. The greatest opportunity therefore lies in the structure of the entire service process, rather than individual teams.

Long handling times often arise where information is missing, responsibilities are unclear, systems are disconnected or cases move repeatedly between teams.

Anyone seeking to optimise customer service processes should therefore begin by removing friction from the entire workflow, rather than speeding up individual tasks.

These seven areas make the difference.

1. Sort incoming requests intelligently

Email, contact forms, telephone, letters, portals and apps: service requests now reach companies through many channels.

Problems arise when these requests must then be reviewed, assigned and forwarded manually. A bottleneck develops before case handling has even begun.

An efficient service process therefore establishes structure as early as possible.

Relevant information includes:

• The issue and its category
• The customer and customer number
• The product, contract or case
• Urgency
• The responsible department
• The required processing steps

Automated classification can help. However, technology alone is not decisive: an unstructured incoming request needs to become a structured case.

The earlier this happens, the less manual sorting is needed later.

2. Define responsibilities clearly

‘Who is taking care of this?’

This apparently simple question costs a surprising amount of time in customer service.

Requests are forwarded, colleagues are copied into emails, or responsibilities are clarified through chat. Waiting times quickly accumulate, especially in more complex cases involving several specialist departments.

A system with clear rules works better:

Which cases belong to which team? Who takes over during an absence? When should a case be escalated? Which specialist department needs to be involved in which circumstances?

Routing and responsibilities should therefore not depend on individual employees' personal knowledge. The best process takes the case as directly as possible to the people who can actually handle it.

3. Remove breaks between systems

Customer service works in a ticketing system. Contract information is in the ERP. Customer data comes from the CRM. Documents are stored in the DMS. Questions to other departments are handled by email.

Every additional system can slow a process down.

Employees search for information, transfer data or constantly switch between applications. The situation becomes more critical when information has to be copied manually.

Process optimisation therefore always includes a simple question:

What information does the employee need to handle the case, and where do they obtain it?

Interfaces to existing systems can make relevant information directly available in the service process and subsequently return results to other systems.

The aim does not necessarily have to be a single system for everything.

A better aim is an end-to-end process across different systems.

4. Automate recurring steps

Not every task requires an individual decision.

Sending acknowledgements, setting deadlines, creating tasks, assigning documents, adding standard information or passing a case to the next team: many small activities recur every day.

Each may take only seconds or minutes. Across thousands of cases, they become substantial workloads.

It is therefore worth asking:

Which tasks do employees repeat according to the same rules?

This is where automation potential lies. However, automation should not force employees into rigid processes. Standard cases should progress efficiently, while exceptions remain flexible to handle.

Standardise what can be standardised. Retain flexibility where specialist knowledge is needed.

5. Make internal follow-up questions part of the process

Many service cases cannot be resolved entirely within customer service.

A specialist department needs to provide an assessment. Accounting checks a payment. A location provides information. Sales knows the background. Delays frequently arise at these handovers.

When collaboration is organised through email, telephone or chat, customer service can quickly lose control of the case.

A clearly defined internal workflow tailored precisely to the service organisation works better. Its benefit goes beyond greater speed. The case handler can always see where the case stands and what is still being awaited. This is crucial in complex service structures.

6. Bring knowledge directly into case handling

A good knowledge base helps little if employees first have to search for the right information. Product information, process descriptions, reusable response text, internal requirements and guidance should be available where they are needed: in the specific case.

This reduces search time and supports more consistent answers. A second effect is even more important: knowledge does not remain exclusively in experienced employees' heads. New colleagues can become productive sooner, and unusual cases can be handled more reliably.

The decisive step is therefore to integrate knowledge into the service process, rather than merely document it.

7. Measure process KPIs as well as service KPIs

How many cases have been closed? What is the average handling time? How satisfied are customers?

These measures matter, but primarily show outcomes.

Effective process optimisation also needs measures that explain why a process is slow or inefficient.

For example:

• How long do cases wait without being processed?
• Which categories cause particularly long handling times?
• Where do most follow-up questions arise?
• Which specialist departments regularly delay cases?
• How often are cases forwarded?
• Which processing steps require especially high amounts of manual work?
• Which issues keep recurring?

Reporting then develops from performance measurement into a tool for continuous improvement.

Optimising customer service means removing process friction

Fast customer service comes from eliminating unnecessary work, rather than making employees click faster.

Less searching. Less forwarding. Fewer follow-up questions. Fewer system changes. Fewer manual routine tasks.

The seven key areas are:

Structure incoming requests, clarify responsibilities, connect systems, automate routines, manage internal collaboration, make knowledge available and make processes measurable.

This is also where the difference between a traditional ticketing system and a platform for complex service processes becomes clear.

TurnFriendly represents the complete handling process behind customer requests: from intake through tasks, assessments and documents to workflows and reporting. Existing ERP, CRM and other systems can be connected through interfaces.

This creates a central process layer for customer service, rather than another isolated tool.

Would you like to identify where unnecessary time is being lost in your service processes? Together, we can explore how TurnFriendly can structure, automate and speed up your existing workflows.

A complaint has been resolved. The customer has received a response, the case has been documented and the record closed.

Operationally, everything is complete.

But this is where a particularly interesting stage begins for improving service, products and processes: How does the customer rate the handling of their request?

This feedback turns complaint management into a learning process.

Why feedback after case handling is especially valuable

During a complaint, the immediate focus is on the specific problem and finding a solution. Once the case has been handled, the perspective changes.

The customer can now assess how the company dealt with the problem:

• Was the request understood?
• Was the communication clear?
• Was the case handled quickly enough?
• Was the solution satisfactory?
• Did the customer have to follow up repeatedly?

This creates a second layer of information.

The complaint shows what went wrong. The subsequent feedback shows how well the company dealt with it.

Together, these are much more informative than an isolated satisfaction score.

Look for connections, rather than simply measuring

A rating from 1 to 5 is easy to collect. Feedback becomes truly useful when it is linked to information from case handling.

For example:

Several customers give closed cases poor ratings. Looking only at the average score tells you just one thing: satisfaction is low.

Complaint management may also hold additional information:

Reason for complaint: incorrect invoice
Processing time: six days
Transfers: three specialist departments
Follow-up questions: two
Customer feedback: negative

This turns a rating into a concrete starting point for improvement.

Perhaps the main problem is not the final solution, but lengthy internal coordination. Perhaps information is missing. Perhaps there are unnecessary handovers between departments.

Feedback gains its real value through this context.

Timing matters

A customer survey conducted weeks after a case is closed often produces less precise results. Feedback immediately after case handling has a key advantage: the experience is still fresh.

A short survey can therefore be useful immediately after closure. Less is often more.

Instead of a long questionnaire, a few focused questions are often enough:

• How satisfied are you with the handling of your request?
• Was the solution clear to you?
• What could we have done better?

The last question in particular can reveal valuable insights that a conventional rating scale cannot capture.

Individual responses need to reveal patterns

The real benefit comes from systematic analysis, rather than individual responses.

Which types of complaint receive especially poor ratings?

Which processes cause long processing times?

Which products repeatedly encounter similar problems?

Which organisational units receive particularly frequent positive or negative feedback?

Do ratings change after a process adjustment?

Customer feedback then becomes an additional data point within complaint management.

Instead of simply documenting that a case has been closed, you can analyse how successfully it was resolved from the customer's perspective.

Customer feedback closes the improvement loop

Professional complaint management therefore does not end with a status of “closed”.

A useful cycle looks like this:

Complaint → Handling → Solution → Customer feedback → Analysis → Improvement

Improvements can take many different forms.

A frequent follow-up question may indicate unclear communication. Recurring complaints can reveal weaknesses in products or processes. Negative ratings despite correct solutions can point to long processing times.

Connecting the information is what matters. Complaint data, process data and customer feedback should therefore be considered together.

Complaint management becomes a source of insight

Complaints are still often treated mainly as cases to be processed as quickly as possible.

This leaves much of their potential unused.

Every case contains information about products, processes, communication and customer expectations. Feedback after handling adds the customer's perspective on the solution.

This is the difference between a system that merely administers complaints and complaint management that enables improvement.

TurnFriendly connects case handling with improvement

With TurnFriendly, information from complaint handling can be brought together in a structured way and used for analysis.

Customer feedback becomes more than an individual rating.

It becomes part of a reliable information base for improving service, quality, products and processes.

Customers increasingly ask ChatGPT and similar tools before using a company's own chatbot. A Gartner survey found that customers now use external GenAI applications such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude around three times as often as company-provided chatbots when they need support.

For companies, this is more than a new channel. It changes where customer service begins and creates new requirements for customer service management.

The Gartner survey of 3,566 B2B and B2C customers was conducted in February and March 2026.

Notable shifts:

• Customers use external GenAI systems around three times as often as company-provided service chatbots.
• The use of external GenAI tools for service has almost doubled within a year, while company chatbot usage has remained statistically largely unchanged since 2022.
• 58% of GenAI users had already asked AI to complete tasks for them. In B2B, this figure was 74%.
• At the same time, customers still expect the option of being handed over to a human employee.

The first contact increasingly happens outside the website

For a long time, the company website was the main starting point for service requests. Customers looked for the FAQ, opened the chatbot or wrote an email.

Today, that first step often looks different:

• “How do I make a complaint to company X?”
• “What rights do I have?”
• “How long does processing take?”
• “Where can I find the right form?”
• “What refund am I entitled to?”

The answers increasingly come from ChatGPT or other AI assistants, rather than the company itself.

For companies, this means having less control over the entry point into service processes. They need to ensure that their information is understandable, up to date and reliably interpretable by AI systems.

Competition is shifting

Many companies continue to invest in chatbots. However, Gartner's findings show that the nature of competition is changing.

The key question will no longer simply be:

“Who has the best chatbot?”

Instead:

“Who provides the most reliable and efficient service, regardless of where the request originated?”

A chatbot can provide information. It does not, on its own, resolve complex service processes.

AI changes the entry point, not the process

When ChatGPT recommends that a customer submit a complaint or an application, the real work of customer service begins.

Processes then need to work:

• AI-assisted case recognition and creation
• Intelligent routing
• Clear responsibilities
• SLA and deadline management
• Escalation workflows
• Audit-ready documentation
• Transparent communication
• Analysis and reporting

For most companies, it should initially make little difference whether a request originated via ChatGPT, email, telephone or a web form.

Customer service management becomes a key success factor

Every additional communication channel increases complexity.

Customers expect companies to respond quickly across channels. They are not interested in which systems are used internally. They expect their request to be handled quickly, clearly and professionally.

This makes customer service management increasingly important.

A central service platform helps ensure that all cases are handled according to the same rules, regardless of the incoming channel. Information remains complete, deadlines can be monitored and each processing step is documented transparently.

Especially in regulated industries, reliable processes are a prerequisite for compliance and service quality, rather than simply a convenient feature.

The role of AI is changing

The Gartner survey highlights another important trend: customers increasingly use GenAI to get tasks done, rather than just to find information.

A supporting technology is becoming a central service channel.

AI will increasingly accompany the first steps in customer service. However, quality is determined by what follows: the processes, workflows and handling behind the scenes.

External AI systems may increasingly take over the first customer contact. Companies have limited control over that development, but they can control the quality of their internal service processes.

Source: Gartner Survey Finds Customers Are 3x More Likely to Use Third-Party GenAI Than Company-Provided Chatbots for Customer Service

Thank you for your trust and loyalty!

A quarter of a century filled with ideas, conversations, challenges, developments and encounters.

What began as a simple idea in 2001 is now a platform used by more than 30,000 people. We are proud of that. Above all, we are grateful.

Grateful to customers who have trusted us for many years, some for more than 18 years. To the people who have developed solutions with us, improved processes and repeatedly given TurnFriendly valuable feedback.

Grateful to a team that drives the company and the platform forward with passion. To partnerships built on reliability and openness.

Much has changed over 25 years: technologies, markets, requirements and expectations. What remains is our commitment to helping companies make complex service processes simpler, with software made in Germany and excellent customer service.

Ultimately, this is about more than software. It is about people. Teams who take responsibility every day. Companies who want to be heard. Colleagues, family, friends and everyone who has accompanied us.

This anniversary is therefore a quiet moment of appreciation.

Thank you to our customers for their lasting loyalty.
Thank you to our team for their passion, perseverance and ideas.
Thank you to our partners for their collaboration.
Thank you to everyone who is part of this journey.

We look forward to the coming years and to continuing to create good things together.

Onwards to our 30th anniversary!

The European Union has agreed on new rules for air travellers. A clear direction is emerging: travellers should be better informed, more strongly protected and supported more quickly.

For tour operators and travel agencies, this is much more than a regulatory issue. Every expansion of customer rights also raises expectations for communication, accessibility and complaint handling.

The key question is therefore whether your own processes can keep up with rising customer expectations, alongside understanding which rights will apply.

Customers know their rights better than ever

Only a few years ago, many travellers did not know when they were entitled to compensation or what claims they could make after a cancelled flight.

Today, customers research their rights during their trip through apps, consumer portals, social media and specialist air passenger websites. The media also regularly report on new legislation and compensation claims.

As a result, customers are better informed and expect quick, reliable answers.

For travel companies, this means:

• More enquiries about flight delays and cancellations
• Higher expectations for response times
• A growing need for transparent information
• Increasing documentation requirements

Complaints become more complex and more critical to customer satisfaction.

The real challenge begins after the incident

A delayed or cancelled flight is frustrating for travellers. Whether it causes lasting dissatisfaction often depends less on the incident itself than on the support that follows.

Customers are more likely to forgive errors and problems when they are resolved professionally and transparently.

In practice, complaints often arise from:

• Missing responses
• Unclear responsibilities
• Long processing times
• Conflicting information
• A lack of transparency about the case status

Especially in travel, these experiences can have a significant impact on customer retention.

Why the number of complaints could rise further

Planned changes to air passenger rights aim to make rights easier to understand and processes more transparent.

For tour operators and travel agencies, this is likely to mean:

• More information obligations
• More follow-up questions from customers
• Higher requirements for supporting evidence
• Greater expectations of digital processes

At the same time, public review platforms and social networks are increasing the pressure.

A single unresolved complaint can become visible to thousands of potential customers within hours.

Professional complaint management is therefore gaining strategic importance.

Complaint management becomes a competitive factor

Many companies still see complaints as an operational burden.

In fact, complaints provide valuable information about weaknesses along the customer journey.

Systematically recording and analysing complaints reveals:

• Recurring problems with service partners
• Opportunities to improve service processes
• Reasons for customer churn
• Risks to brand perception

Modern travel companies therefore use complaints both to solve problems and to improve quality.

Transparency builds trust

Customers now expect the same transparency for a complaint that they get from parcel services or online shops.

They want to know:

• Has my request been received?
• Who is handling my case?
• How long will processing take?
• What happens next?

Without this information, uncertainty arises, even when work on the case is already underway.

Digital complaint processes support clear communication and build trust in difficult situations.

What tour operators can review now

Regardless of which specific changes lawmakers ultimately adopt, travel companies should critically review their existing processes.

Key questions include:

• Are complaints recorded centrally?
• Are processing deadlines documented clearly?
• Can requests be prioritised efficiently?
• Is communication with customers transparent?
• Are the causes of complaints analysed systematically?
• Are data protection and documentation requirements met?

The earlier companies improve their processes, the better they can respond to future requirements.

Conclusion

New air passenger rights show how quickly legal requirements can change. Tour operators and travel agencies therefore need professional complaint management backed by a flexible solution.

Being able to adapt processes, workflows and responsibilities quickly helps avoid unnecessary effort and confusion. Regulatory changes can then be implemented efficiently while customers continue to receive professional support. This flexibility will become an increasingly important success factor.