Does your bank or credit union only receive a few complaints each month or quarter?
If so, it’s easy to pat yourself on the back and think your institution is amazing. And you may be right!
But before you celebrate, make sure that your institution is actually asking for and collecting complaints properly. Because, honestly? Banks and credit unions that don’t get many complaints may not have a perfect program. You might just not have the proper tools and processes in place to see consumer complaints when they happen.
And once you get the process right, you may be surprised at what you find…
Why Receiving Few Complaints Doesn't Always Mean Happy Customers
Just because your bank or credit union receives few official complaints doesn’t mean customers are happy.
That’s because customers don't always complain directly to your institution. Some leave negative reviews online. Some vent on social media. Others might mention an issue to a frontline employee who fixes the problem without documenting it. And some customers don't say anything at all; they just take their business elsewhere.
Complaint volume alone doesn't tell the whole story. If your institution isn't collecting feedback from every channel and tracking it consistently, you're likely missing valuable insights.
And no, the goal here isn't to receive more complaints. It's to make sure you're actually finding the ones your customers are already trying to tell you so you have a clear view of your institution and customers’ experience.
What a Poor Complaint System Looks Like
It’s easy to feel like only a few complaints are coming through when you don’t have a proper system in place. Here are some examples:
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Complaints posted on social media are responded to, but not tracked anywhere for your team. Old complaints get forgotten because no one is revisiting them.
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Frontline staff forwards any complaints they receive to their manager. Managers take care of the problem but don’t report those complaints to anyone else unless it’s really bad.
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Complaints received through an online form are reviewed by one department. That department takes care of the response but doesn’t share the feedback with branches or employees involved.
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Complaints are consistently tracked, but responses are inconsistent (or don't happen at all).
If your institution’s system (or lack of) looks like this, that means there’s no clear view of how much feedback your institution is actually receiving. You’re basically flying blind.
6 Tips to Ensure You Aren’t Missing Complaints
1. Ask for consumer feedback
First things first, you need to actually ask consumers for feedback. When people don’t have an official place to submit complaints, they’re more likely to turn to social media or other public platforms. And while we do believe complaints can be a good thing, that doesn’t mean you want everyone to see them…
Here are just a few ways you might ask consumers for feedback:
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Link to an online feedback form in employee email signatures
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Link to that same form on your website and in social media bios
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Leave comment cards around each branch
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Send a follow-up thank you email asking for feedback whenever someone opens an account, takes out a loan, applies for a mortgage, etc.
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Train employees to ask how a consumer’s experience has been (and also train them on how to properly submit that feedback to you)
Not all feedback will be a complaint. An extra benefit to explicitly asking for feedback is that you’re also much more likely to receive compliments! People who have a good experience with your institution aren’t the ones typically seeking out a place to tell you about it. But if you make it easy for them to submit feedback, then they may take a few moments and let you know how great you are.
2. Standardize your complaint intake process
One of the biggest mistakes financial institutions make is allowing every department to handle complaints differently.
Maybe your call center logs every complaint in a spreadsheet. Branch managers keep notes in Outlook. Marketing tracks social media comments in another tool. Compliance has its own process for regulatory complaints. Everyone is trying to help customers, but nobody is working together.
Instead, you should create a standardized intake process for every complaint your institution receives. Whether the complaint comes from a branch employee, your website, social media, or a phone call, your team should collect the same core information every time.
This might include:
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Customer contact information
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Date the complaint was received
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Where the complaint originated
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The product or service involved
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A description of the issue
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Any employees or branches involved
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Priority or risk level
When every complaint is documented the same way, it's much easier to search, report on, and identify trends over time.
The more consistent your intake process is, the more confident you’ll be that the number of complaints received truly reflects your customers’ experience.
3. Assign clear ownership
Even the best complaint process won't work if nobody knows who's responsible for following through.
Every complaint should have a designated owner from the moment it's received. This doesn't necessarily mean one person has to resolve every issue. It simply means someone is accountable for making sure the complaint reaches a resolution.
For smaller institutions, this may be a single employee or compliance officer who oversees every complaint.
Larger banks and credit unions often need several departments to participate. A complaint may begin with a branch manager, move to operations for investigation, involve compliance for review, and finally return to the branch for customer follow-up. That's perfectly fine, as long as everyone understands where the complaint is in the process and who currently owns it.
Without clear ownership, it's difficult to know which complaints have been resolved and which have fallen through the cracks. That uncertainty also makes it harder to understand how many complaints your institution is actually handling.
Clear ownership eliminates that uncertainty and ensures every complaint receives the attention it deserves.
4. Capture complaints from every channel
Not every complaint arrives through an official complaint form. If your institution only tracks complaints submitted through one official channel, you're missing a large portion of customer feedback.
Customers may leave negative Google reviews. They might post on Facebook. They may send emails. They can mention frustrations during a branch visit. They might vent during a phone call. There are many ways for a customer to “submit” a complaint, and your institution needs to be watching for them.
Here are some channels that should be monitored and searched for complaints:
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Social media
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Online reviews
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Customer surveys
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Branch interactions
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Contact center conversations
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Website feedback forms
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Email
The more complete your picture of customer feedback, the better equipped you'll be to improve the customer experience.
5. Train employees to handle complaints
Along with training employees to recognize an informal complaint, make sure they know what to do next.
Employees should know:
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What qualifies as a complaint
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How complaints should be documented
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When complaints should be escalated
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Expected response timelines
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How to communicate with frustrated customers professionally
When everyone follows the same process, complaints are less likely to slip through the cracks. By empowering employees to find and submit complaints, you’re showing that you care about what customers say.
6. Track all complaints in one system
Now that complaints are coming in from multiple channels, they need one central home.
Trying to manage complaints across spreadsheets, email chains, sticky notes, and shared folders quickly becomes overwhelming. Different departments end up maintaining separate records, making it nearly impossible to see the full picture.
A centralized complaint management system solves this problem by giving everyone access to the same information. Employees can easily submit complaints, managers can monitor progress, and leadership can identify trends without piecing together reports from multiple sources.
Instead of wondering whether a complaint has already been addressed (or searching through old emails trying to find it), you have one source of truth.
How Kadince Helps You Better Manage Complaints
If your institution isn't capturing every complaint, it's impossible to know what your customers are actually experiencing.
Kadince’s Complaint Management software helps you create a complete picture by giving your institution one centralized place to collect, track, investigate, and report on complaints, no matter where they originate.
Whether a complaint comes from a branch, an online form, email, or another channel, employees can quickly submit it using standardized forms. Automated workflows ensure complaints are routed to the right people, while clear ownership and status tracking help prevent issues from falling through the cracks.
At the end of the day, complaints aren't something to fear. They're opportunities to learn. And if your institution only receives a handful of complaints each month, that doesn’t mean your system is perfect.
When you have the right processes and the right tools, every complaint becomes another chance to strengthen consumer relationships, improve operations, and build a better financial institution.
With Kadince, you can stop wondering whether you're seeing the whole picture and start using consumer feedback to strengthen your institution. Schedule a demo to see how it works.
None of Kadince, Inc., its affiliates, or its respective employees, directors, officers, and agents (collectively, “Kadince”) are responsible or liable for any content or information incorporated herein. Read full disclosure.
