We built Ophelos around customers. That means offering them the best service, making sure they have the highest rates of satisfaction and receive the most understanding, helpful support.

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However, no matter how much a company focuses on customer satisfaction, there will always be some customers who file complaints and disputes. For those customers, companies need to have a framework in place to resolve complaints in the quickest, fairest way possible. Done right, customer complaints can be an opportunity to genuinely help someone, while boosting customer loyalty and brand image.

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The status quo for complaints and disputes in debt collection

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The FCA expects firms to conduct their activities in a way that treats customers fairly, provide clear communications to consumers, and resolve disputes and complaints fairly.

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However, their recent research shows that there is a lot of room for improvement in the way that firms deal with dispute debts. Over the past two years, they found cases where:

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• The customer had raised disputes multiple times before they were recorded as a dispute or appropriately dealt with
• There were unclear communications on the status of a debt and the outcomes of dispute investigations
• There were disputes with long periods of inactivity not being quickly resolved, sometimes because the firm needs information from an original credito
• There were customer complaints which were not 'disputed debt' being raised as a 'disputed debt' and therefore not managed in line with the FCA's complaints handling rules

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Financial struggles can be a huge source of worry, and they should not be perpetuated by poor customer service. Companies need to be on the top of their game - not just so that they can offer a great customer experience but because a slip-up has the potential to seriously impact a person's mental wellbeing and financial situation.

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How we handle complaints and disputes at Ophelos

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We're hoping to raise industry standards to make it fairer, quicker and clearer for customers to raise and resolve a dispute. This is our recipe for success.

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1. We make it easy for customers to complain

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The last thing a frustrated customer wants is excessive admin or time-consuming processes. Providing customers with an easy, transparent way to voice their opinions and issues means that we are able to resolve more complaints, rather than letting them deal with it alone.

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Customers can let us know if something is wrong via their preferred communication channel, and we encourage them to get in touch if they aren't happy with anything. We also make sure to give them all the necessary information about how we will handle their complaint, together with the timescales they can expect so that they are kept fully in the loop.

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2. We have a strong communication framework

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Our digital-first communication strategy means that customers can quickly and easily tell us what's wrong at a time that suits them. It's annoying for customers when they have to constantly repeat themselves, so we try to get as much information with as little customer intervention as possible (in fact, one of the key drivers of harm with regards to disputes is inadequate communication between creditor and collector).

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We liaise with our clients and make sure to hear back from them within 24 hours. We make it easy for them to share relevant documents such as customer bills, statements or previous emails so that we can quickly build up a complete picture with evidentiary support of the customer's situation and what they have previously been told, removing the need for long conversations with our clients and cutting out any back and forth with the customer.

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3. We learn from customer concerns and complaints

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We get to the root cause of our customers' concerns and complaints in order to find out what is going wrong and why. We have a structured system where we can store all information, evidence and customer feedback, which also allows us to analyse patterns and trends.

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With this data, we can determine which kind of complaints occur, at which point in the journey, for what reasons, and what the customer chooses to do once a complaint is resolved.

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Sharing these insights with the whole team allows us to stay up-to-date on where and how we can improve, as well as pinpoint the best places to direct resources.

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4. We check in with our team too

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Dealing with a lot of people in difficult situations is no easy task, and we never overlook the emotional impact this can have on our team. We pay attention to their needs, try to foster a supportive, caring work environment and make sure that our customer support agents receive recognition for their amazing work. Without them, we wouldn't be able to provide the level of support that we do.

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Interested in hearing more about the work we do at Ophelos? Why not get a demo.

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