Patient Complaints to the Saudi Medical Call Center: Representative Response Strategies

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the strategies and modifications employed by the Complaint Unit Representatives (CURs) in response to complaints recorded in the formal workplace of a medical institution in the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH). A pragmatic discourse analytic approach was adopted to construct an analytical framework for authentic spoken complaint responses in the Saudi medical institution context. The data were randomly collected from 80 recorded phone conversations between patients and the CURs. It was transcribed verbatim, imported into MAXQDA for qualitative analysis of codes categorizations, and then into SPSS for statistical analysis. The findings showed that the staff employed a balance of transactional and interpersonal approaches in their response strategies, which varied in both quantity and quality depending on the phase or the major sequence of the moves made in the complaint call. Specifically, more transactional strategies were used during the main portion of a complaint and in the medial phase, while more interpersonal strategies were employed during the initial and the final phases of the call. The findings also showed that the CURs tended to downgrade and mitigate their responses to patients’ complaints, and they never used upgraders. The influence of the religious culture was also noticeable in their use of downgraders, including optimistic devices and religious expressions. These findings reveal practical implications that can aid the quality team of the Complaint Unit (CU) in assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of the CURs’ response strategies when handling complaints, and in providing more effective communication training as needed.

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to the Saudi MOH, especially the General Directorate of Contact Centers (937) and the Development and Business Intelligence team. Their IRB approval to get access to the required data and their cooperation are much appreciated and acknowledged. I also thank the Saudi Ministry of Education, including King Khalid University and King Saud University, for supporting this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Consent for publication

I hereby consent to the publication of this work in its current form. I understand that the paper may be published in print, electronic, or other media.

Data availability statement

A confidentiality agreement was signed by the principal researcher to ensure that the data would not be disclosed to a third party and would be used only for research purposes due to the confidentiality of patients’ and the CURs’ information and the data protection policy of the Saudi Ministry of Health.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received. 

Notes on contributors

Zenah Ayed Dajem

Zenah Ayed Dajem contributed to the study’s conception, design, data collection and analysis up to the final manuscript. She is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at the English Department, College of Sciences and Arts, King Khalid University, Saudi. Her main research interests are applied linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. She has a double major in applied linguistics and English language teaching from the School of English Studies and has a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certification from the School of Education, both from Nottingham University, UK. She is also a certified language instructor from the University of Cambridge, UK (CELTA).