Complaints volumes are rising across the public and private sectors, and so is the scrutiny of how organisations handle them. The Housing Ombudsman's Annual Complaints Review 2024–25 recorded 7,082 determinations between April 2024 and March 2025, a 30% increase from the previous year. The Financial Conduct Authority's Consumer Duty has made complaints data a core part of evidencing good customer outcomes. Meanwhile, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman published its Complaint Handling Code in February 2024, setting out clear standards for councils to meet.
Against this backdrop, complaints management can no longer be treated as an administrative afterthought. For organisations serious about performance, reputation, and regulatory compliance, it is a strategic function - one that requires the right processes, culture, and tools.
We have pulled together insight from leading regulators, standards bodies, and industry experts to give you a practical round-up of the most effective ways to improve your complaints management process.
One of the most consistent messages from regulators and industry experts is this: organisations that only focus on resolving individual complaints miss the bigger picture.
The FCA's thematic review on complaints and root cause analysis, based on a review of practices across 40 firms, found that while most firms had processes for carrying out root cause analysis, far fewer were using those findings to drive meaningful change. The FCA notes that understanding complaints data is an essential part of meeting the requirements of the Consumer Duty and that firms should be tracking patterns over time to discover the reasons behind recurring problems as well as looking at outcomes for different customer groups.
The implication is clear. Efficient complaints management is not just about closing cases quickly. It is about identifying the underlying causes of complaints and acting on them. Organisations that treat each complaint as an isolated incident will keep handling the same types of cases repeatedly, at a significant operational cost.
Ad-hoc complaints processes are difficult to manage and even harder to audit. Regulators and standards bodies are in broad agreement that a structured, documented framework is essential to operational efficiency.
ISO 10002, the international standard for complaints handling in organisations, sets out guidelines that cover everything from initial complaint receipt through to resolution, review, and continuous improvement. It emphasises that "an effective and efficient complaints-handling process reflects the needs and expectations of both the organisations supplying products and services and those who are the recipients." The standard also makes clear that top management commitment is non-negotiable. Resourcing, training, and cultural tone all start from the top.
In the UK public sector, the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) Complaint Handling Code takes a similar position. Launched in February 2024, it sets out expectations for transparent, accessible, and timely complaint resolution. It also introduces an annual self-assessment requirement, which means organisations need to be able to demonstrate how their processes perform, not just assert that they work.
Adopting a framework does not mean generating bureaucracy. It means ensuring everyone in your organisation follows the same process, and that your records are reliable enough to audit.
Delay is consistently one of the top reasons complaints are upheld when they reach an ombudsman. The Housing Ombudsman's 2024–25 review found that 71% of complaints it investigated were upheld, with failure to act within published timescales cited as one of the most common reasons for adverse findings.
Timeliness problems rarely have a single cause. They tend to result from a combination of unclear ownership, manual handoffs, poor visibility over case progress, and insufficient capacity. Addressing them requires looking at the end-to-end workflow, not just the performance of individual complaint handlers.
Poor record-keeping is a recurring theme in ombudsman findings, and its consequences are significant. The Housing Ombudsman's 2024–25 review noted that records failures contributed to maladministration findings and resulted in over 2,000 findings of reasonable redress - over 800 more than the previous year. In a tight fiscal environment, these remedies represent a direct and visible cost.
Beyond the financial risk, poor records make it impossible to defend decisions, identify patterns, or demonstrate compliance. The FCA's Consumer Duty requires firms to evidence outcomes - which is very difficult without a coherent and complete case record.
That record needs to be available to anyone who legitimately needs to access it, without depending on a single individual's memory or inbox.
The LGSCO's Complaint Handling Code explicitly aims to "cultivate an environment of positive complaint handling, where individuals feel comfortable bringing forward a complaint." This reflects a wider consensus among complaints professionals: process and technology only take you so far. If the organisational culture treats complaints as a nuisance rather than intelligence, even the best framework will underperform.
Research consistently shows that most dissatisfied customers do not complain - they simply stop engaging. The complaints that reach your team are therefore a fraction of the actual experience picture. Organisations that make it easy to complain, and that respond constructively when people do, capture more of that picture and are better placed to act on it.
Leadership sets the tone here. When senior stakeholders review complaints data regularly, when learning from complaints is built into service improvement conversations, and when front-line staff feel supported in handling difficult cases, the culture follows.
The Huntswood Complaints Outlook 2024, published via UK Finance, makes the commercial case clearly: organisations that use complaints as a source of operational intelligence "can uncover untapped revenue potential, reduce churn, and strengthen their market position."
Technology alone does not make a complaints process efficient. But the right technology, applied to the right problems, can make a significant difference, particularly as complaint volumes increase and regulatory expectations rise.
The most cited areas where technology delivers real efficiency gains in complaints handling are:
At Workpro, we understand that efficient complaints management depends on having infrastructure that supports your team rather than creating additional overhead.
Our complaints management software is built around the operational realities of organisations managing significant complaint volumes under regulatory scrutiny. Case records are centralised and audit-ready. Workflows are configurable to your internal process, with automated SLA tracking and escalation alerts to keep cases moving. Reporting tools give managers the visibility they need to identify trends and demonstrate performance, both to internal stakeholders and external regulators.
For organisations in financial services operating under Consumer Duty, or housing providers subject to the Housing Ombudsman's statutory Code, Workpro provides the traceability and oversight those regimes require. For local authorities aligning with the LGSCO's Complaint Handling Code, the system supports the structured, two-stage process the Code describes, with quick case capture, configurable workflows and the ability to reassign case ownership.
The LGSCO themselves used Workpro to dramatically overhaul their own complaint handling system. By streamlining their working practices they were able to increase productivity and reduce the cost per case while exceeding their performance targets and improving quality standards.
The organisations handling complaints most effectively share a few common characteristics. They take root cause analysis seriously. They work within a documented framework. They meet their own SLA commitments consistently. Their records are complete. And their leadership pays attention to valuable complaints data.
None of this requires a transformation programme. It requires clarity about what a good process looks like, the consistent application of that process, and the right tools to support your team. Organisations that get these foundations right now will be in a stronger position when volumes rise, when regulators ask questions, and when a complaint reaches an ombudsman, because the evidence to support their decisions will be right there.