Complaint management: Why CUs should sweat the small stuff

“You can’t please everyone.”

The old adage can be a comfort when dealing with a particularly troublesome consumer complaint. Yet, as every good credit union compliance officer will tell you, even small, seemingly isolated, complaints must be thoroughly investigated.

A comprehensive complaint management program includes a significant number of tasks, including establishing policies and procedures; opening clear channels of communication; following an investigation process; coordinating a written response; maintaining records; taking corrective action; and retaining, organizing and analyzing complaint data.

While ticking off every step of this process for each grievance that comes into the credit union may seem like an untenable exercise, there are several things CUs can do to make the practice more achievable.

Score and organize: Not all complaints represent the same level of risk to a credit union. A complaint received by a regulatory body, for instance, warrants a fast and thorough response. By instituting a tiered evaluation procedure, staff can address and escalate the most serious concerns first and to the fullest degree. Importantly, they can do so consistently from one complaint to the next. Using a regtech platform with intuitive workflows can make scoring a fairly simple task. Some platforms can even be configured to alert the right people when a particular complaint rises to a specified level of importance.

Analyze in real time: Sometimes a complaint is just noise; sometimes it’s a signal. By scoring and categorizing complaints in one centralized place, staff can see in real time if an ostensibly “small” issue is part of a larger problem that needs further exploration. This can be really helpful when onboarding a new department lead who needs to be brought up to speed on the biggest challenges and opportunities currently facing that line of business. Bonus points if the complaint management hub offers data visualization to help management more quickly grasp the scope of potential problems and spot trends.

Establish a single source of truth: A single consumer can lodge the same complaint several times, across several channels, engaging with different member service representatives and other team members as they go. This can create confusion among staff and even contribute to a lack of accountability for resolution and documentation. Complaint management technology can help here, providing CUs a straightforward way to log, track, manage and report on every incident that comes into the cooperative, even those that score too low to warrant action. Often more comprehensive than a spreadsheet, a complaint management tracker can also house multi-media files, like customer service calls or scans of paper communication.

Automate follow up: CFPB and NCUA requirements are highly prescriptive when it comes to the specific processes and timelines that must be followed to properly investigate and resolve complaints. Credit unions can benefit from automating certain steps in this process. This is particularly helpful when dealing with a high volume of low-risk complaints. Internal check-ups, for instance, can be auto-generated and sent to responsible staff on a pre-configured cadence.

Handling big and small complaints with empathy builds trust

Consumer protection is a high priority for financial regulators. As such, examiners are intensely focused on complaint management and likely will remain so as we head into 2025. Credit unions should establish policies and procedures that are clear and repeatable, making it easy for staff to comply with the rules regardless of the severity of any single complaint.

It should also be noted that proactively addressing minor issues today can prevent them from escalating into larger regulatory or reputational risks tomorrow. What’s more, demonstrating a consistent commitment to thoroughly and empathetically handling all complaints—big and small—can build stronger bonds with members. It’s much easier to trust a credit union that is willing to sweat the small stuff in the name of a great member experience.