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2009 results

In 2009, the number of customer complaints to our Australian Customer Response Centre (CRC) increased to 44,994 from 41,490 last year.

This increase reflects the deteriorating economic climate over the year and is consistent with trends across numerous industries.

This year we have focussed on increasing customer satisfaction with the complaints resolution process by ensuring a consistent process for customers regardless of which channel they use as well as ensuring staff have the right skills to respond appropriately to complaints.

Key initiatives have included:

• the consolidation of previously independent complaint teams
• clarifying for our branches and call centre how and when to escalate a customer concern or complaint
• making it easier for our customers to lodge a complaint online by providing a link on the homepage of anz.com
• contacting customers more frequently to update them on the progress of their complaint and spend more time at the conclusion of cases to ensure customers understand the outcome and their options to take the matter further if required
• introducing monthly surveys of customers who have had a complaint resolved by ANZ to track their satisfaction with our approach
• providing relevant business units with 'dashboard' analysis of the top causes of customer complaints in their business and priority customer issues for resolution.

Despite the material increase in complaint volumes, complaints continued to be resolved in a timely manner; 91.7% of complaints were resolved within five days (against a public target of 90%).

The future

We will continue to monitor and measure customer satisfaction with our complaints processes through monthly customer surveys.

2008 results

In 2008, the number of customer complaints to our Customer Response Centre (CRC) increased to 41,490 from 36,889 last year*.

This increase was partly due to the current market volatility and an increase in the number of customers requesting financial hardship assistance.

This year we continued to focus on the complaints resolution process, investing in both the CRC team capabilities and also in problem avoidance projects (e.g. reviewing and streamlining our processes for assisting customers who are experiencing payment difficulties).

We have increased the number of staff available to resolve complaints, developed a new training and monitoring process to further improve our customer service levels, and enhanced team processes to enable swifter resolution of complaints. We have also undertaken market research and mystery shopping programs to provide ongoing feedback by which to identify any development opportunities to further improve our complaints resolution service.

We continue to meet our targets for resolving complaints in a timely manner. We resolved 83 per cent of complaints in 48 hours (against a target of 80 per cent) and 91 per cent within five days (against a target of 90 per cent).

The future

Our 2009 Corporate Responsibility Goals (PDF 796kB) include a commitment to resolving 90 per cent of retail customer complaints within five working days and improving customer satisfaction with our complaint resolution processes. Progress against this commitment will be reported in our interim and full year Corporate Responsibility Reports.

* 2007 statistics have been restated based on the adoption of a new reporting database and a revised qualifying criterion.