Health insurers and pension providers are receiving the poorest reviews from customers.
Research by Smart Money People revealed 84 per cent of consumers have seen no difference in customer service from financial providers since the implementation of the FCA’s consumer duty.
The biggest issues reported by consumers and reasons why they would change providers were no access to human support (48 per cent), untrained staff (34 per cent), no available phone number (32 per cent) and an over-reliance on chatbots (24 per cent).
According to Smart Money People, after reviewing more than two million independent reviews, they found that health insurers received the lowest reviews followed by pension providers.
Many reviews were submitted about an insurer off of the back of a claims experience, indicating this event was triggering people to leave feedback.
Some 7 per cent of respondents said the levels of service have gotten worse since the introduction of the consumer duty.
While 81 per cent of respondents who were deemed as ‘vulnerable’ by the FCA’s criteria said they had seen no positive improvement in the way their financial services companies had treated them in the past 12 months.
Jacqueline Dewey, chief executive of Smart Money People, said: “The FCA’s consumer duty is specifically designed to raise standards of care for financial services customers.
“However our data shows customers are not seeing the impact of these guidelines 12 months later. It’s particularly concerning that vulnerable customers have not seen an improvement in their experience during this time. This is why it’s so important that people take the time to give feedback on both good and bad experiences.”
alina.khan@ft.com
