Our customer contact division provides our front-line for all consumer
enquiries – by phone, letter and email. During the year we
handled 614,148 front-line enquiries – a 12% increase
on the year before that (following a 19% increase the year previously).
This means we are now handling more than 1,500 phone calls and over
1,250 pieces of new correspondence every day from consumers –
with questions, concerns and complaints about the way they believe
they have been treated by financial firms.
| front-line
enquiries from consumers |
| |
| 2005 |
285,149 written enquiries
|
| 328,999
phone enquiries |
| 614,148
total enquiries |
|
|
|
2004
|
256,446 written enquiries
|
| 291,892
phone enquiries |
| 548,338
total enquiries |
|
|
|
2003
|
196,786 written enquiries
|
| 265,554
phone enquiries |
| 462,340
total enquiries |
|
year
ended 31 March
|
Where consumers contact us before raising their complaint
with the firm, our customer contact division forwards the complaint
to the firm and asks it to investigate the matter under its formal
complaints procedure. We remind consumers that they can ask us to
get involved directly if the firm is not able to resolve their complaint
within eight weeks.
Our customer contact division also gives general advice and guidance to consumers with enquiries. At this early stage, we try to nip straightforward problems in the bud, before they become full-blown disputes. For example, where a problem stems from a simple administrative error or misunderstanding between the customer and the firm, it might only take a few phone calls for us to sort things out.
A key part of this complaints-resolution work involves our customer contact division intervening at the earliest stage in mortgage endowment complaints – for example, by providing information and guidance to consumers whose complaints arise from confusion or uncertainty about redress already on offer from the firm. In many of these cases, the consumer is concerned that there is still something wrong, because the amount of compensation offered does not match the estimated shortfall shown on the “re-projection” letter that the firm sent them. We can resolve many of these early complaints by clarifying – from an entirely independent standpoint – the regulatory approach to mortgage endowment compensation, and by explaining how redress has been calculated in these cases to comply with guidance set by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). During the year our customer contact division resolved 12,721 complaints in this way – complaints which would otherwise have become full-blown cases.
An increasing number of consumers are getting the information they
want directly from our website, rather than phoning us or writing
to us directly. Over 95,000 people visit our website each month
(a 25% annual increase – following a similarly-sized increase
the year before). Three-quarters of those who logged on during the
year were first-time visitors.
Where further work is needed to resolve complaints, our customer contact division acts as the gateway to our specialist casework teams of adjudicators.
|
|
| new
cases referred to our adjudicators |
In the year ended 31 March 2005, our customer contact division
referred 110,963 new cases to our adjudicators for more detailed
dispute-resolution work – a 13% increase on the previous
year. This continues the upward trend of recent years.
The increase in new cases during the year resulted mainly from
the continued high volumes of mortgage endowment disputes being
referred to the ombudsman service.
We received just under 70,000 new cases about mortgage endowment mis-selling – the highest number so far, and a 34% increase on the number of mortgage endowment complaints received in the previous year. This meant that almost two thirds of new cases during the year were mortgage endowment complaints – compared with around a half the previous year (and under a quarter the year before that).
| number
of new cases each year |
| |
| 2005 |
110,963
new cases |
| 2004 |
97,901
new cases |
| 2003 |
62,170
new cases |
| 2002 |
43,330
new cases |
| 2001 |
31,347
new cases |
| 2000 |
25,000
new cases |
|
year
ended 31 March
|
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to top
| new
cases by type of complaint |
| |
| 2005 |
69,737
mortgage endowment cases (63% of all complaints) |
| 19,251
other investment-related cases (17% of all complaints) |
| 10,491
banking-related cases (9.5%
of all complaints) |
| 11,484
insurance-related cases (10.5% of all complaints) |
| 110,963
new cases in total |
 |
| 2004 |
51,917
mortgage endowment cases (53% of all complaints) |
| 25,157
other investment-related cases (26% of all complaints) |
| 9,798
banking-related cases (10%
of all complaints) |
| 11,029
insurance-related cases (11% of all complaints) |
| 97,901
new cases in total |
|
| 2003 |
13,570
mortgage endowment cases (22% of all complaints) |
| 23,872
other investment-related cases (38% of all complaints) |
| 15,070
banking-related cases (24%
of all complaints) |
| 9,658
insurance-related cases (16% of all complaints) |
| 62,170
new cases in total |
|
| 2002 |
14,595
mortgage endowment cases (34% of all complaints) |
| 13,711
other investment-related cases (31% of all complaints) |
| 8,117
banking-related cases (19%
of all complaints) |
| 6,907
insurance-related cases (16% of all complaints) |
| 43,330
new cases in total |
|
| 2001 |
9,067
mortgage endowment cases (29% of all complaints) |
| 9,568
other investment-related cases (30% of all complaints) |
| 6,153
banking-related cases (20%
of all complaints) |
| 6,559
insurance-related cases (21% of all complaints) |
| 31,347
new cases in total |
|
year
ended 31 March
|
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to top
|
