Financial services specialists NewDay claimed the Overall Winner title at the 2018 UK Complaint Handling Awards thanks to a ground-breaking complaints model that was successfully adopted by staff and led to a whopping 20 percent reduction in handling times.
The ‘NewDay Way’ plan was outlined to judges in the Managing Your People category, and the success of the initiative led to the company being awarded the Gold title, while Silver was presented to BT Business and Public Sector Complaints.
NewDay’s project consists of five “core tools” to improve the complaint handling process. These are Standard Work (introducing standard ways of working); Visual Management (visuals driving changes to improve); Communication Cells (regular “huddles” celebrating success or voicing concerns); Creative Problem Solving (a structure for complaint resolution); and Work Place Audit (system checks to ensure the process is working).
Along with the reduction in complaint handling times, the NewDay Way led to a reduction of pipeline complaints to the lowest ever recorded post implementation, and a reduction of FOS referral rate to below the industry average.
A company spokesperson said of the initiative:
“Our drive to continually improve, together with the NewDay way of working positively impacted every customer and colleague interaction can only be described as an exceptional change in our culture that we are extremely proud of.
“Following our success story in complaints, the model has been introduced business wide as we strive to deliver on NewDay’s commitment to our customers.”
The Silver Winner in the Overall Winner category was Virgin Money, while United Utilities got the Bronze.