Glossary term
Complaints Handling
Subject: Compliance and Regulation, Conduct and Consumer Protection
Also known as: Grievance Redressal
Complaints handling is the process by which an organisation receives, records, investigates and resolves expressions of dissatisfaction from customers, and uses the findings to correct underlying problems.
Explanation
A complaint is usually defined as any expression of dissatisfaction about a product, service or member of staff, whether or not the customer calls it a complaint. Regulated sectors such as banking, insurance, telecoms and utilities must run a formal procedure: easy ways to complain, a written acknowledgement, a fixed response time, a clear final answer and information about where to go next, often an ombudsman or tribunal. Firms log each case with a category and root cause. Reviewing the log reveals patterns, for instance many complaints about one product or fee, which can point to mis-selling or a faulty process. Boards and senior management usually receive complaint data regularly. Supervisors often start a conduct review with the complaint log, since it shows quickly whether problems are noticed and fixed.
Example
A retail bank receives 3,000 complaints in a quarter. Its team acknowledges each within two working days and resolves most within the fixed deadline. When the monthly analysis shows 400 complaints about unexpected charges on one savings account, the product team reviews its disclosure, rewrites the fee notice and refunds affected customers. Complaints about that charge fall by two thirds the next quarter.
Not to be confused with
- Whistleblowing
- Whistleblowing reports wrongdoing inside an organisation, usually by staff; a complaint is a customer's dissatisfaction with how they were treated.