Every year, the BBC receives around 1 million comments, appreciations, complaints and enquiries via the Audience Services team.

It's our job in Audience Services to ensure that every comment and complaint is normally shared in full the next morning with BBC staff, and overnight we compile and circulate a report of the day's audience feedback. This is how we make sure that each viewer and listener can tell the BBC directly what they think of our programmes and standards. No wonder then that this is one of the most widely read reports in the BBC - your reaction is invaluable to producers and managers, and is discussed across the BBC.

The rise of social media and more widespread publicity about the BBC has probably fuelled its popularity. The site has made it easier for you to contact us, and the result is that since 2008 the number of complaints has doubled to around 240,000 every year.

Each complaint we receive must be logged, classified, reported overnight and if necessary replied to. And although it is an enormous task, we send most replies within around 2 weeks. But to achieve this efficiently and still use your licence fee sensibly, we need technology tailored to our needs, as well as people to process, handle and reply to your comments.

Which is why, after some 6 years, the Complaints website is changing. The new site will be launching shortly, part of a wider updating of the BBC's corporate websites that started with the launch of the new BBC Media Centre site last month.

The new BBC Complaints site looks different, and uses a simpler design which we have tested with audiences, including their extensive feedback in the design process. The site will feature more editorial updates and links when there is a relevant report, statement or finding that has been issued by the BBC. It will link you directly to Radio 4's "Feedback" or "BBC Newswatch" programmes, so you can catch up with these when they are on.

The site also uses technology more efficiently, and our webform has been redesigned so that you fill in the information needed to help report and classify your complaint efficiently and get it to the right people overnight. It explains in more detail, as you complete it, why we need the details we request about your complaint.

If you need to use the new BBC Complaints site, we hope you'll still find it easy to use, even if it looks rather different. But above all of course, we hope you enjoy our programmes and really won't feel the need to complain...

Keith Jones, Audience Services

Because Digital UK are helping viewers to switch, we in the BBC were in close contact with them beforehand to anticipate possible issues and make sure anyone contacting us with difficulties was quickly and correctly referred to Digital UK for help.

The changes bring with them some inevitable and odd complications. One of the most common is ending up with the wrong regional service, especially if you live between different transmitters and have had to retune your equipment (if this has happened to you, help is available here). Digital UK is of course monitoring the switchover. It's a big change, so if you find you are affected, visit Digital UK's website where you can find comprehensive advice and help.

We have felt for some time that we should explain more about what we do, so I plan to use this blog to do that and also explain some of the issues generating reaction from audiences.
One of our most popular services is providing tickets to our radio and TV shows or events, and for the award-winning tours of our studios and buildings. I'd urge you to come and visit: we promise you'll have a really good time visiting or coming to a BBC show.

But there's another important side to our work. It's through my teams that most people send in their comments, appreciations or complaints about BBC programmes, either online at the Contact Us site or by telephone (look up BBC in your phone directory). As a result of all this feedback we know a lot about how people react to our programmes.

The strongest demand is always for more information or help using our services. We provide this mostly online on the Help site and although we can't answer everything, we do our best to find answers and publish them online. And for some of the issues covered in programmes we provide access to further information and sources of advice on our Action Line site.

Every morning one of our services is to collate the reaction we've received and report it to programme makers and managers across the BBC. If you read the press you'd think the BBC only receives complaints but although newspapers are always more interested in complaints, they are a relatively small proportion of all the reactions we receive.

For example, many viewers were recently moved by the quality of our documentary Wounded and contacted us to say so. We've also had appreciations for Life, The Choice, The Choir and Strictly Come Dancing. We did have many complaints about the replacement of Arlene Philips by Alesha Dixon, but we've also had appreciations for Alesha now the series is up and running.

We had lots of reaction to a recent interview with Gordon Brown, and you'll be only too aware of the response to the inclusion of the British National Party in Question Time. We have editorial obligations and standards which we must keep to across all our coverage, so in such cases we try to explain why when we believe criticism is misplaced (a good example can be seen on Ric Bailey's blog or in Mark Thompson's response on this blog).

How do we react to all this reaction? The short answer is that it depends on what it is about. Sometimes we can change things, sometimes we can't. For example when thousands of viewers complained that they were unable to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics because it was screened during working hours, we changed our schedules and were able to repeat it. We read every comment (yes, every comment) and make them available to producers and managers in our reports. But we are mindful to listen to what other audience research findings tell us as well as those who contact us.

If we get something wrong we should apologise and say so. But often we are unable to agree with those who complained and try to give our reasoning. So we provide a rigorous complaints service, and we publish regular summaries of the main issues we have considered and which people have raised.

We can't please everyone, and must often balance competing pressures. During Wimbledon this year, for example, many people were pleased that we kept some key matches on BBC One when they overran. But others were extremely unhappy about the disruption which inevitably followed to the rest of the schedule, especially to our news bulletins at 6.30pm. So, obviously, we must take this into account in planning our coverage next year.

The importance for us is to carry on listening to your reaction. We're grateful that our programmes matter so much to so many. We take everyone's reaction seriously and can sometimes act on it, but I hope this helps to explain why the BBC cannot always respond in the many ways different people would like us to.