The termination of complaints in calls to an authority for student support

• Complaints are embedded in different institutional activities.
• Complaints are typically ended in activity shifts.
• Transitional devices are key resources in call-takers handling of complaints.
• Responding to complaints comprises a delicate balancing of stance.
• Accounts are potentially problematic responses to complaints.

This study investigates how complaints are handled and terminated in calls to the government authority for student loans in Sweden. It is based on Conversation Analysis and compares complaints embedded in two contexts of the calls: (1) complaints about previous contacts with the authority, typically articulated in the beginning of the call, and (2) complaints in response to the decisions and solutions to the caller's requests offered by the call-taker. The shift towards a next activity constitutes the general orientation of call-takers’ handling of complaints. The design and positioning of different transitional devices are analyzed. The study confirms previous research indicating that the responding to complaints involves a delicate balancing of stance, and that affiliation is typically avoided or minimized in institutional contexts. Most important, the study shows how the collaborative termination of complaints is conditioned by the activities in which they are embedded and the participants’ different preferences for progressivity. Complaints in the first context are typically treated as a secondary issue in an orientation to the reason for call. In the second context, extended and up-graded complaints are marked by the callers’ refusals to accept complainable decisions and repeated rejections of call-takers’ shift initiatives.