Customer service, complaints management and regulatory compliance

This paper examines the regulatory requirements for the management of customer complaints in financial services. It describes the outcomes of new research, which show that most financial services companies are some way from being able to meet these new regulatory requirements. It identifies the processes that must be followed to fulfil these requirements and outlines the type of system that is likely to be able to support meeting these requirements. Finally, it identifies that the probable reason for the neglect of this area is the heavy involvement of most financial services companies’ customer service functions in meeting the needs of the sales process (before, during and after the sale) rather than the more traditional role of customer service ‐ listening to customers and solving their problems.