Building a “best in class” complaints process

While firms try to do their best for their customers, inevitably they won’t always get it right. This requires market participants to have an effective and robust complaints process to be able to understand why things have gone wrong and take corrective action where necessary. And this all needs to be underpinned by an effective Financial Ombudsman Service, acting as a backstop to ensure fair outcomes are being delivered.

Delivering good outcomes through effective complaint management

At Baringa we are proud to call the Financial Ombudsman Service a client. We have been working together for 18 months to improve their complaint handling processes through increased automation and the use of machine learning, enabling them to process complaints more quickly to improve the overall customer experience.

The FCA are implementing a new Consumer Duty aiming to improve the outcomes that industry participants deliver for consumers. In their role as the ultimate arbiter for consumer complaints, The Service will continue to ensure that outcomes are fair and reasonable based on the circumstances of each individual case and, in doing so, will take account of the increased standards arising from implementing the new Consumer Duty. The intention is that this will ultimately result in fewer customer complaints as the overall standards improve across the industry.  Nevertheless, The Service will continue to invest to be “best in class” in the handling of complaints, setting the standard for all industry participants, whilst minimising the amount of consumer harm and improving the relationships that financial services firms have with their customers.

In this brief video we speak to Lee Crawford, Head of Applications for The Service, about the work that we have been delivering together and the impact of this on their business.

Find out how we help our clients in the Financial Services Industry