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Case Work

This article is part of LeO News, edition 25.

Below is an example of a firm making a positive change to improve their service. This features in our updated Best Practice Complaint Handling Guide as it is a great example of a firm making a small change that has the potential to make a big difference to them and their customers. 

Case Study
Case Study
Learning from complaints
Firm A could not retrieve the paperwork from a Help to Buy Scheme resulting in the completion of a property being delayed, impacting their customer. The customer complained to the firm and initially the firm took the position that it wasn’t their fault as they had spent considerable time trying to retrieve the paperwork.

However, upon rereading the complaint, the firm realised that the complaint wasn’t about the delayed completion but the fact that they hadn’t kept the customer fully advised that this was a possibility.

The firm offered the customer a small reduction of fees and the complaint was resolved.

Following this complaint, the firm have changed their procedures and now make sure that customers are aware of any potential impact on their purchases and any problems that may arise. The complaint allowed the firm to make changes to their processes and if the customer hadn’t complained, they may have duplicated the same problem over and over.

The interesting thing on this case was that the firm hadn’t had any issues with Help to Buy before, and the delay was because of the Covid pandemic. The firm took the time to understand the real cause of the complaint and decided to amend their procedures in light of the potential delays which were out of their control.  

A positive change for customers, but also a positive change for the firm, who are limiting the opportunities for complaints around delay in this area.

This case study was sent to us from a firm following a workshop we held with them. Over the last year we have had the opportunity to work more closely with firms and we’ve been able to provide as well as receive useful feedback. This is something we’d like to continue to do and we are exploring ways in which we can make this happen so that we have a bigger impact on improvements within the sector.  

Having the opportunity to work with firms on a 1:1 basis, has provided us with an insight into various practices and procedures that we feel are creating barriers to resolving first tier complaints.

These are addressed in our updated Best Practice Complaint Handling Guide and you can find out more about it here.

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