MSE News: FSA to name and shame complaint-heavy firms

natweststaffmember

dunstonh wrote: »

You clearly missed the point that the big firms are going to be there by default because they do the most transactions and have the most staff. That doesnt make them bad.

A bank with 50,000 staff just needs a complaints ratio per staff member of 1% to hit the 500 mark. Whereas a firm with 20 staff would need a complaints ratio of 2500% to hit the 500 mark. How is that fair and how is it beneficial to the consumer? Wouldnt you prefer to use a firm with a 1% failure rate than a 2500% failure rate?

You almost know that the the name and shame list is going to be full of most the banks and possibly 1 IFA network purely on the basis of scale. Not because of quality or lack of quality

Hang on one minute, the FSA definition of a complaint is "any form of dissatisfaction whether justified or not". The issue with regards to the data will be more focused on 8 week complaints and those not being dealt with. I would go further and say any firm NOT getting 500 complaints would be surprising. I would be shocked if not every single one of the major companies are not on the statistics since they would have to.
Can I ask for an example of a company that you would say is classed as having very few employees because I am struggling with that point?

dunstonh

I would go further and say any firm NOT getting 500 complaints would be surprising. I would be shocked if not every single one of the major companies are not on the statistics since they would have to.

Exactly. They are going to be there by default because of their size.

Can I ask for an example of a company that you would say is classed as having very few employees because I am struggling with that point?

Those I would not expect to see starting with smaller and working up (in no accurate order):

brokers, mortgage advisers, IFAs (non networked ones). Quote comparison sites, smaller focused insurers and product providers (i.e. annuity providers, fund supermarkets or friendly societies), smaller building societies etc

They are all going to be too small to generate 500 complaints. However, that doesnt make the level of complaints they do get better than a firm far bigger than them that gets more.

natweststaffmember

dunstonh wrote: »

Exactly. They are going to be there by default because of their size.


Those I would not expect to see starting with smaller and working up (in no accurate order):

brokers, mortgage advisers, IFAs (non networked ones). Quote comparison sites, smaller focused insurers and product providers (i.e. annuity providers, fund supermarkets or friendly societies), smaller building societies etc

They are all going to be too small to generate 500 complaints. However, that doesnt make the level of complaints they do get better than a firm far bigger than them that gets more.

But surely those firms would be included in the yearly stats so allowing people who really want to know, to find out those details anyway regardless of whether larger firms are publishing them twice a year. Furthermore, there has been consultation on this matter so I would suspect the smaller firms are probably in agreement with the proposal since sending in the submissions for smaller firms may involve a lot more work than larger companies.

dunstonh

But surely those firms would be included in the yearly stats so allowing people who really want to know, to find out those details anyway regardless of whether larger firms are publishing them twice a year.

They wont be published and that data is not available to the public domain.

Alpine_Star

dunstonh wrote: »

You clearly missed the point that the big firms are going to be there by default because they do the most transactions and have the most staff. That doesnt make them bad.

A bank with 50,000 staff just needs a complaints ratio per staff member of 1% to hit the 500 mark. Whereas a firm with 20 staff would need a complaints ratio of 2500% to hit the 500 mark. How is that fair and how is it beneficial to the consumer? Wouldnt you prefer to use a firm with a 1% failure rate than a 2500% failure rate?

You almost know that the the name and shame list is going to be full of most the banks and possibly 1 IFA network purely on the basis of scale. Not because of quality or lack of quality

People are quite capable of figuring out scales for themselves and drawing their own conclusions. Likewise the banks are quite capable of publishing their own scale relative data.

davidgmmafan

The companies have thier own external benchmarking, and they will be bale to produce such data when the figures are released. IMO standards a low in financial services generally with regard to complaints. You just need to look at the kind of generic templates you get in response to most complaints.

Also size doesn't always mean more complaints. British Gas get many complaints, and they are huge, but the weight of opinion seems to be that they are dreadful. Tesco are huge and don't attract many complaints.

dunstonh

ou just need to look at the kind of generic templates you get in response to most complaints.

Not unreasonable given the number of templates used in most complaints.

Tesco are huge and don't attract many complaints.

Tesco are hated in many areas. However, there are far less things you can really complain about to Tescos than most other areas. Tescos are not likely to get people claiming back things 10 years down the road. i.e. I bought a loaf of bread 10 years ago and you didnt tell me it had wheat in it and I want to claim my money back

oscar52

Higly suspect MBNA will make this list.

I agree with some of the posts above, and apologies if this has already been mentioned (i know staff levels have) But what about customer numbers??

MBNA has over 4 million customers (in the UK) its quite possible they will recieve 500 complaints - a ration of 0.0125%. Take that agaisnt another instituation that has far less customers, if hardly provides a fair comparison.

rb10

Alpine_Star wrote: »

People are quite capable of figuring out scales for themselves and drawing their own conclusions.

It depends on how it's presented. When the Ombudsman released figures of how many complaints had been referred to them, it was presented in a way to say that 'building societies get fewer complaints than banks'.

Which is true ... but doesn't take into account of the scale of the organisations. Only one building society even approaches the scale of the big five banking brands, yet the 'findings' were still displayed in such a way that they claimed that building societies were therefore 'better'.

I can imagine this going exactly the same way.

*MF*

Without negating earlier comments ...

If over a period of years it is clear that the number of complaints increases, say noticeably, then I think there are lessons to be learned, similarly if the trend decreases - the management of any company, regardless of size, should have as much to learn as the public from the trend of complaints against it.