Playbook, mortgage broker
Three complaints arrive on one website and one of them is yours
Almost everything that lands as a complaint on a broker's site is a complaint about somebody else. A lender said no, a valuer put a figure on a property the buyer disagrees with, a conveyancer has gone quiet. The firm is where the client has a relationship, so the firm is where the anger arrives. Sorting the message by who actually made the decision is the most useful thing the assistant can do, and it has to be done without ever suggesting the other party got it wrong.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for complaints holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Most of these are objections to a lender's decision, which the firm did not make and cannot overturn, and saying so early is the difference between redirecting a complaint and being blamed for the outcome.
- A disputed valuation figure belongs to the valuer the lender instructed, and any challenge runs through the lender with evidence attached, so the firm is not the route even though it is the contact.
- Complaints touching advice concern a regulated activity and carry recording and response duties, which means the firm needs the complaint in writing with a date on it rather than sitting in a chat transcript nobody reviews.
- A case that has run for months usually arrives as a complaint about service when the underlying grievance is a stage the client was never told existed, and answering the process question sometimes ends it.
How it arrives
- i want to complain about my mortgage adviser
- the lender turned us down can i complain about that
- the valuation came back lower than we agreed
- our case has dragged on and nobody rings me back
- how do i make a formal complaint about your firm
- who do you answer to if i am not happy
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your complaints procedure with its stages and timescales | Who receives a complaint, in what form, what happens next and by when. The reason to index it is that a client who can see a process is far less likely to escalate before the firm has had a chance to answer. |
|---|---|
| A plain division of what is yours and what is not | One short passage saying which subjects belong to the firm, which to a lender and which to a conveyancer. Write it neutrally: the goal is to route the message, not to make an argument about fault. |
| How a valuation is challenged, described as the lender's process | That challenges go through the lender, what kind of evidence is usually needed, and that the outcome is not the firm's to promise. Applicants ask this often and are almost always aiming it at the wrong party. |
| The independent route available once the firm has given its final answer | Described the way your market provides it, in general terms, and only after the firm's own process has run. Say that it exists rather than characterising what it will do, because that is the part firms get wrong when they improvise. |
The reply
I am sorry it has come to this, and it will help to work out which part is which. If your concern is about our service or our advice, our complaints procedure sets out who it goes to and how quickly you will hear back [1]. If it is about a lender declining the application, that decision is the lender's and we cannot overturn it, though we can explain what happens next. If it is about the valuation figure, challenges to that run through the lender rather than through us, and they turn on evidence [2]. I cannot log a complaint here or see anything about your case. Leave your name and an email and it will go to the person who handles these.
It sorts before it apologises further, because a client who is angry with a lender and gets a firm's apology assumes the firm did the thing. Each redirection carries the reason, so it reads as an explanation rather than as passing the parcel. Saying plainly that nothing is logged here prevents the worst outcome on this page, which is somebody believing they have complained and waiting.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor uses the word complaint, names an adviser, quotes a decision or a valuation figure, or says they intend to take it further.
I cannot record a complaint or look at your case, and I do not want you waiting on something that has not started. Leave your name and an email and this will reach the person who deals with complaints today.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never accept a complaint as logged or received, since nothing typed here creates a dated record and the date is what the firm's own procedure runs on.
- Never say a lender's decision was wrong, harsh or unfair, which is a view on an assessment the firm did not make and did not see.
- Never suggest a valuation can be changed by asking, because a challenge goes through the lender, needs evidence and frequently fails.
- Never offer compensation, a fee back or a goodwill gesture to settle somebody down, which commits the firm before anybody has looked at what happened.
Questions
- Can it log the complaint so we have the timestamp?
- No. It sends a name, an email and a message to the address you nominate, and that email is what starts your process. It cannot write into a complaints register, so the material should never imply the clock has started from the chat.
- Most of ours are really about a decline. Does explaining the split make people angrier?
- It makes them angry at the right party, which is a better outcome for everybody including the client. What makes people angrier is a firm that absorbs the blame politely and then does nothing, because the complaint was pointed at the wrong door all along.
- Should it try to answer the service complaint when the answer is only a process explanation?
- Yes, and it resolves a fair number of them. Somebody complaining about six weeks of silence around a valuation often stops complaining once they learn what the stage is waiting on. Anything beyond that goes to a person.
Keep reading
- Everything for a mortgage brokerProcess, documents and fees are safe to automate. Rates go stale fast and affordability cannot be answered generically.
- Handling complaints in generalThe job is to route, not to resolve. Acknowledge without conceding, name the escalation route, and get it to a person fast.
- Open until eight, and nothing can be submitted after fiveAdvisers take evening calls after the lender desks have shut, and products get withdrawn overnight. An hours page here runs on two clocks.
- The address on the site is rarely the address anybody needsMost mortgage advice never happens in a room, so where are you usually means do I have to come in and where do original documents go.
- The portal is where the access problem is, not the front doorThe upload step is the barrier, the fact find runs long, and a joint applicant cannot be spoken for unless the firm has recorded it.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.