So many thousands complain to us about these faceless firms
I WORK for the complaints service
Resolver and have been a consumer rights champion for two decades.
In that time, I’ve watched PPI become the biggest mis-selling scandal of all time and witnessed the impact of the meltdown of financial services during the credit crunch. Now I am helping households face down the horrific impact of the cost-of-living crisis.
But never have I seen a more fundamental challenge to consumer rights than the remorseless erosion of customer service.
Resolver helped to sort out more than 550,000 complaints last year — and astoundingly, more than half of those cases mention an inability to contact a business as a fundamental problem.
It may not be the reason for the complaint, but it is certainly the main driver for the frustration that millions of people experience every day.
There is a misconception that people in Britain are incorrigible complainers. That is simply not true. Most of us don’t like to make a fuss, we just want our voices heard.
Yet when we try to contact businesses in almost every sector, we struggle to speak to a human being.
If you don’t believe me (you must be in a very small minority), ask any friend or family member about their experiences.
It is becoming increasingly hard to contact a business for help or support — and it’s clear to me that some companies are actively making it difficult even to register a complaint.
The people I speak to say they can’t get through to businesses on the phone. When they try to put their complaint in writing, they have to navigate online forms with limited character counts that seem to vanish into the ether.
And if they resort to writing a physical letter, they rarely receive a response.
Making it difficult for your customers to get help doesn’t make their complaints go away. It just makes people angry and resentful.
Have no doubt about it, not only will those people vote with their feet, they will tell those they care about not to bother either.
So investing in customer service isn’t just the right thing to do. It is sound business sense, too.