The FINANCIAL — Barclays Plc (BARC), the U.K.’s second-largest lender, said complaints fell 26 percent to 284,342 in the first half as fewer customers sought redress for improperly sold loan insurance, according to Barclays Plc.
Total year on year complaints excluding PPI are up 12 per cent, this increase can be attributed to the following areas:
40 per cent rise in mortgage complaints (H1 2014 5,900, H1 2013 4,210) this is as a consequence of growth in the market share and updates to our systems as we invest in the business. 12 per cent rise in banking complaints (H1 2014, 91,198, H1 2013 81,222) driven largely by significant one-off changes, not the day to day experience of customers.
“We are constantly making improvements to our day-to-day customer experience. However, our banking complaint figures reflect some significant one off changes in the first half of 2014,” Matt Hammerstein, Head of Client and Customer Experience at Barclays. “We’ll never stop striving to improve service and prevent the need for complaints and we believe this approach will deliver real change in customer satisfaction for the long term,” he added.
Making overdrafts more fair for all
“We made some big changes in June to the way overdraft charges are applied, making them simpler and fairer for our customers. Whilst for the majority of our customers the charges will have a neutral or positive impact, some customers will now pay more to borrow; these customers have contacted us to voice their opinions and concerns about the change in pricing structure. We have proactively reached out those who will be most impacted, offering support and alternative borrowing solutions where appropriate. In the long run we know that the new simple daily fee, together with the free text alerts and a £15 buffer for those that go overdrawn, will make overdraft borrowing easier to understand, easier to manage, and benefit the vast majority of our customers. When making changes such as this, we know increased transparency will lead to more complaints, but we believe it’s the right thing to do.”
Speed of Resolution
“The way customers interact with us is changing, and more now choose to get in touch online to talk about their service experiences and suggestions. The immediate consequence is that customers become harder to reach securely, and this can stretch the time it takes to resolve any issues. The answer is to embrace this technological shift, so we’re introducing SMS and secure email chats to provide a safer more streamlined platform for these digital conversations.”
Home Finance
“The number of people taking mortgages with us has increased by more than a third in the last year, and as this grows, so too does the number of customers getting in touch to discuss issues they are having. To help fix these issues and enable our teams to respond more quickly, we have put in place a thorough review of the root causes, identifying over 100 actions to improve the overall experience for customers. We understand that applying for a mortgage is an important moment in our customers’ lives, and speed is of the essence, so we are increasing the number of staff on hand to handle enquiries, and empowering them to resolve more issues at the first point of contact.”
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