RG 271 – How the Right Technology Can Ensure Cost-Effective Compliance

While Australian financial services organisations might be clear about what they need to do to achieve RG 271 compliance, when it comes to how they can achieve compliance, many are not so sure.

Ultimately, a good complaint management system (CMS) is the key to ensuring an efficiently compliant business. Tying processes and teams together and facilitating the necessary adherence to complaint processes, the right system will optimise the entire end-to-end customer complaint journey, while providing the peace of mind that your organisation is RG 271 compliant at all times.

Which Attributes Should Your Complaint Management System Have?

With many financial services businesses taking the opportunity to review their incumbent systems to see how well-equipped they are to cope with the RG 271 requirements, what should you be looking for in a CMS?

• Firstly, you need a centralised system that spans all your lines of business, so a system that can manage the complete complaint lifecycle.

• Additionally, it should have functionality to support every role in the complaint process, including customers, complaint handlers, IDR specialists and board-level decision-makers.

• The ability to map not only processes and tasks, but SLAs too is vital, enabling your businesses to track and identify how, when and by whom tasks, actions and resolutions were handled.

• Your CMS also needs to be the right fit for your specific business, purpose-built to suit the needs of your organisation and with configurable workflows to streamline and automate repetitive tasks, all while ensuring compliance.

• Lastly, your CMS should furnish your business with real-time actionable insight which you can then feed back into the business.

• If your CMS is missing any of these attributes, then you run a real risk of non-compliance.

Incomplete Compliance With CRMs Or Ticketing Systems

Many businesses could be forgiven for thinking that they can use existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions or customer service / ticketing systems to manage complaint compliance. Unfortunately, for many, it’s not until they start using these systems in earnest to manage complaints that they realise their compliance limitations.

CRM solutions are very good at managing all aspects of customer relationships from a sales and marketing point of view, but their focus will always be on managing customer relationships, providing basic customer service management. Similarly, ticketing systems are ultimately designed to manage customer queries, handling requests for information and carrying out simple actions. What neither of these solution types can do is manage the complex, interdependent and dynamic processes that make up good, compliant complaint management. They simply don’t offer the functionality that’s needed to help your complaint handlers navigate the complex network of different stages and options in their quest to achieve a quality and compliant resolution for the customer.

What Specific Functionality Should Your Complaint Management System Offer?

What you need is a CMS that’s built to manage every aspect of how work gets done, which is exactly what’s required to ensure consistent RG 271 compliance. Not only does a good CMS provide case process management, compliance management, case agent and case manager workspace, workload management and quality management, it consolidates all the necessary information alongside all the people and activities required to resolve a complaint and resolve it compliantly.

Your CMS should connect your front and back-end activities, tracking, automating and assigning all the tasks associated with compliant and efficient complaint handling. The most intuitive systems will guide your caseworkers through a prescribed, compliant resolution process, ensuring all necessary steps are taken and within mandated timescales too. The right CMS will make sure that all the RG 271 boxes are ticked, regardless of in which direction the complaint goes.

An intuitive, intelligent CMS will dynamically change the workflow in-line with the specific requirements of the complaint and / or customer. It will guide the complaint handler as to the best course of action dependent on the information gathered at initial contact. So, this could trigger an RG 271-compliant IDR written response to a complainant within five days if the complaint is resolved immediately, and it can alert the complaint handler to vulnerability, for example, signposting the next steps to be taken.

Training and Technology: The Perfect Combination

The right CMS guarantees a defined process, complimenting staff training and doing so much more than just data capture. Inconsistencies should become a thing of the past as everyone involved in the complaint management processes is guided at every step of the way, with all complaints managed in a compliant and consistent manner. That’s not to say that such a system should replace complaint handlers. Indeed, a good CMS will serve to increase the productivity and quality of complaint handler activities.

When it comes to RG 271 compliance, the key is consistency and quality, two things that can be facilitated with a robust complaints management solution, one that’s tailored to suit the specific needs of your business. As financial organisations continue to get to grips with the guidance, the right solution can make all the difference, underpinning efficient, effective regulatory compliance while ensuring quality outcomes every time.

Use our compliance calculator to find out just how compliant you are with RG 271 and contact us today to see how our complaint management system, Aptean Respond, can help with all your compliance requirements.