Bank, insurance, mutual… What will change for customer complaints

By 2023, the ACPR, the regulator, is asking banks and insurers to reduce the response times to their dissatisfied customers as well as the quality of these. Each year, a summary of progress must be published and the organizations concerned must train competent personnel dedicated to these complaint situations.

Warning shot. The Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR) on Tuesday invited banks and insurance companies respond more effectively to complaints addressed to them. These recommendations will be effective as of December 31, 2022. The objective of this document published by the regulator is to reduce response times to customers as well as their quality. The maximum response time requested is two months, unless there are more restrictive regulations to the contrary.

The ACPR asked banks, insurance companies and mutual insurance companies to train competent staff in handling complaints and in order to be able to inform the customer, understand and solve his problem in a clear and understandable way.

How to improve the handling of complaints made orally?

According to the ACPR, it is not acceptable for a client to be sent from one service to another to assert their rights. It is therefore recommended to identify complaints made by customers regardless of their channel of expression. For those made orally, made live, on the phone but also via instant messaging where a copy of the exchanges is not always provided, it is strongly suggested that the professionals propose, to a dissatisfied customer, a postal address to send a letter, a document, a form or any other alternative which details the complaint.

By this way, the complaint is then dated and the dissatisfied customer has proof of his request. This will be used if necessary for the purposes of proceedings with another service or the mediator concerned.

From deceptive marketing practices or aggressive solicitation are not the only cases in which a customer can express his dissatisfaction. For example, bad information or a bad reception can be enough to motivate a complaint the opposite of a request for advice or advice in certain areas such as legal matters.

When is a complaint deemed admissible?

Complaints, which are characterized by the expression of dissatisfaction, can relate to very diverse subjects, underlines the ACPR in its recommendations. Here is a non-exhaustive list of examples:

  • the advertising communicationsin particular their receipt;
  • a sales technique (direct canvassing);
  • the quality of the consent given or its absence;
  • the reception quality;
  • the quality of a response;
  • the absence of delivery of a certificate of refusal to open an account

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Just give his place to the mediator

The ACPR also requests that it be mentioned in any response that the competent mediator may be contacted in the event of a dispute. Its contact details and the methods for entering it must be found easily and quickly. It is specified in particular whether this mediator can be seized without delay or, if such is not the case and it is a consumer mediator, that the latter can in any case be seized two months after sending the first written complaint addressed to the professional, regardless of the contact person or the service to which it was formulated, specifies the ACPR.

The consumer defense association UFC-Que Choisir asked in July 2021 for a complete overhaul of the mediation system by creating a truly independent public mediator.

Finally, the organizations concerned are asked to implement procedures to identify their shortcomings, their bad commercial practices, to analyze their shortcomings and improve the handling of their complaint. If necessary, in collaboration with the mediator services for each year, propose a summary of past and future improvements.

The following requests are not complaints:

  • request for a commercial gesture or discount;
  • request for communication of documents;
  • request for performance of the contract (request for operation, service, etc.);
  • request for information or explanations (contract clauses, operation of the product or service, procedure for subscribing to or terminating a product or service, application of government measures, etc.);
  • request for opinion or advice: of a legal type, on one’s rights, on the choice of a contract according to a family situation.

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