Complaints training
Why was it important to address this issue?
Misconduct in complaints handling can severely damage reputation, lose customers and cost large amounts in compensation. Regulators are also interested in what complaints handling indicates about culture, management, governance, and how customers are treated more broadly.
Objectives
All customer-facing staff in the insurance firm needed to understand how to recognise a customer complaint and what to do at that point. Culturally, it was important that staff and managers understand that complaints were not attacks on the company but a normal part of customer service and so did not automatically adopt a negative mindset when dealing with complaining customers.
Staff also had to understand the processes they were expected to follow in dealing with complaints, including what they were allowed to deal with and what needed to be escalated to their managers or to the central customer complaints team.
How did we help?
We developed modules of specialist training for over 500 team leaders, managers and the central complaints team covering the following:
- What is a complaint?
- Handling difficult conversations
- What should I do when I receive a complaint?
- How to manage a complaint
The programme consisted of a blend of different approaches including e-learning, self-study manuals, face-to-face training, manager-led team sessions and formal assessments.
What were the results?
At the end of the training, the programme scored an average of 4.5 out of 5 from participants’ feedback forms.
Overall, complaints are now being dealt with effectively and correctly, quality checking is showing a marked increase in positive grades and staff are reporting a significant increase in their confidence in dealing with complaints.