Treating complaints as noise will only lead to louder consequences

Overlooking complaint and dispute data is a costly mistake, says Fayola-Maria Jack, CEO of Resolutiion, who argues businesses should instead treat it as a strategic KPI to surface early signs of regulatory risk, relationship strain and operational issues.

In May this year, the FS industry was shocked to learn that the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received over 140,000 complaints about financial businesses in the second half of 2024. It was a staggering 49% increase on the same period the previous year, driven mostly by banking, credit disputes and a rise in motor finance commission cases.

Since then, financial institutions have been scrambling to respond, with fears that the sector could be sleepwalking into another Payment Protection Insurance-scale crisis.

In my view, there is also a bigger, important picture: this isn’t just ‘administrative noise’ or a nuisance metric that needs a quick fix to avoid reputational or compliance problems. Rather, these are live data points that hold a strategic opportunity to better understand where your customer relationships and contracts are breaking down and if there are any systemic contract failures or operational misalignments to address.

Understanding how to transform complaint and dispute data into strategic intelligence isn’t just something for the FS sector, either; it’s a skill that businesses sector-wide must also learn, especially those in regulated industries and contract-heavy, high-stakes sectors (where similar patterns are also emerging). 

The benefits of treating complaints as a strategic KPI

According to a joint World Commerce & Contracting and Resolutiion report on commercial conflict, firms that are taking a more forward-thinking approach by tracking disputes proactively are already seeing a range of benefits. 

Firstly, there’s a clear financial gain – the economic cost of disputes runs into trillions of dollars, and even if we narrow calculations to only include direct costs and published data, the estimate is almost $900bn. That’s a lot of wasted money, effort and damaged relationships, especially when so much of it is avoidable.

But aside from the cost savings element, we’re also seeing companies report:

• Fewer contract breaches and failed deliveries
• Better relationship visibility across vendors and customer portfolios
• Earlier, as well as cheaper, resolution of issues, before they escalate to an ombudsman service like the FOS, media, or litigation

When properly tracked across recurrence, escalation, and resolution velocity, complaint data can be seen as structured, real-time feedback loops – in other words, a strategic resilience metric. By this, I mean they don’t just surface individual grievances, they reveal patterns of failure, and misalignment between promised and delivered services, procedural inefficiencies, or unclear responsibilities across the delivery chain. 

For example, in healthcare, tracking complaints related to delays or clinical miscommunications could spotlight operational pressure points before they become safety incidents. In telecoms, a spike in complaints about service outages or unclear pricing can preempt regulatory fines and customer churn. In energy, conflict velocity metrics could help providers get ahead of trust breakdowns during events like tariff hikes or supply disruptions. In public services, data may reveal where policy implementation is failing – before it makes headlines. 

No matter the sector, the main message here is that predictive analytics supercharge the strategic use of complaints and disputes across all regulated industries by transforming them from retrospective noise into proactive signals of future risk, operational failure, and trust erosion.

Strategies to transform complaints into useful insights

Despite the above, remarkably few organisations actively monitor the frequency, causes and escalation patterns of their complaints. In fact, in most large enterprises, legal teams see only the tip of the iceberg (disputes that escalate into formal claims or litigation). 

But beneath the surface lies a constant flow of operational tension: delays, unmet expectations, ‘off-record’ settlements and renegotiations fielded quietly by what is deemed back-office roles: business managers, commercial managers, contract managers and supplier managers. 

So, what can organisations not currently using this data to their advantage do differently? Some steps to consider:

• Remember that not all issues are equal, but most businesses treat them in a binary way – either as noise or as legal crises. Introduce a structured taxonomy (low, medium, high impact) to treat commercial friction with appropriate attention and pace.
• Embed commercial relationship health as a standing governance item – just like financial health or operational resilience.
• Create a single point of ownership for all issues across procurement, delivery, and operations. Today’s fragmented ownership leads to loss of insight and missed signals.
• Instead of waiting for a failed delivery or legal escalation, run quarterly retrospectives on recurring commercial tensions (even those resolved informally).
• Too often, escalation is treated as failure. Reframe it as a tool for visibility, learning, and recalibration when used constructively and early.
• Go beyond legal fees. Account for time spent managing issues, relationship deterioration, and internal misalignment. These hidden costs often outweigh formal dispute expenses.
• Frequent issues may signal misaligned expectations, values, or incentives, especially in strategic partnerships. Don’t treat them as delivery noise.

While conflict is an inevitable part of doing business, it really doesn’t have to result in negative outcomes.Only those that ignore the warning signals will miss the most timely and truthful signals your customers are sending. Instead, it can serve as a pivotal opportunity for recalibrating partnerships, addressing underlying issues, and strengthening relationships.

So, should we wait for the next £50 billion scandal to take dispute data seriously, when there are clear warning signs already here? Or is it time to flip the approach, embed complaint data into risk, performance, and governance frameworks and start reaping the benefits? 

Written by Fayola-Maria Jack, Founder, Resolutiion. Resolutiion® is a human-centred global AI platform, purpose-built to help businesses prevent, manage, and resolve commercial conflicts, complaints, disputes, and claims – with speed and precision.

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