A large UK financial services firm engaged Huntswood after experiencing recurrent spikes in irresponsible lending complaints driven by increased complaint management company (CMC) activity and media campaigns. At the same time, the client sought to relocate its complaints administration function back onshore following an internal efficiency review. Huntswood was appointed to take ownership of all BAU complaint handling on an outsourced basis.
The Challenge:
The client needed a solution that could manage high complaint volumes, improve operational efficiency, and reduce regulatory risk. Key priorities included improving acknowledgement processes, reducing duplicate submissions, and enhancing root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent rework and improve customer outcomes.
The Solution:
Huntswood implemented a series of improvements:
- Enhanced the acknowledgement process, reducing processing time and subsequent customer enquiries.
- Improved RCA on CMC submissions, enabling regular dialogue with CMCs and reducing duplicate complaints.
- Applied RCA on furthers and reopened cases to improve customer templates and responses, resulting in a 3% reduction in chasers and furthers received.
- Automated the FOS submission process, reducing processing time by 40% (20 minutes per case).
- Implemented a robust quality checking framework and improved adherence to policy and process guidance, supported by continuous feedback and learnings.
The Results:
- 15% improvement in acknowledgement timings
- 44% reduction in FOS referral rates (January to June 2020)
- 40% reduction in FOS processing times
97% quality score achieved, minimising rework and increasing efficiency