Covid-19 stops complaining in its tracks, survey finds

Covid-19 prompted an unprecedented drop in complaining as consumers mellowed and showed companies more patience during lockdown, a survey has found.

The average number of complaints per person plummeted from 3.7 pre-lockdown to just 0.95 in May – by far the lowest number in the seven-year history of the Consumer Action Monitor report.

Not-for-profit complaints handling body Trust Alliance Group surveyed more than 6,000 consumers in total.

Four in 10 (41%) of those surveyed said they had become more tolerant of poor service during lockdown, with only one in ten (10%) saying the opposite.

Nearly two thirds of complaints (65%) went unreported to potentially culpable product or service suppliers during lockdown – up slightly from 62% pre-lockdown.

A quarter (24%) of consumers who were unhappy with a product or service, but chose not to complain to the company involved, did so because they were more willing to be lenient during lockdown.

The proportion of consumers who reported feeling anger, stress, exasperation, anxiety and other negative emotions about a complaint also fell significantly lockdown (see below chart).

format_quote

"The pandemic and lockdown had ushered in a new breed of “sympathetic consumer” – though this may prove to be a temporary phenomenon.

She said: “As consumers we realise that companies are having to cope with an extraordinary array of challenges due to the pandemic and lockdown.

“It appears that this awareness has made us more tolerant of problems and delays, more patient, more understanding – and much less likely to complain.

“It’s as though, collectively, the British public has decided to give companies a break during lockdown.

“The decrease we’ve seen in negative emotions linked to complaints also suggests that the pandemic has given many people a greater sense of perspective about consumer complaints. Put simply, people have had more important things on their mind.”

Jodi Hamilton, director of relationships at Trust Alliance Group

format_quote

“It’s possible, of course, that consumers have simply been storing up complaints during lockdown and that as life starts to feel more normal, with restrictions being eased, we’ll see a return to previous complaint patterns.

“Indeed, we found that one in six people (16%) intend to pick up a complaint once our world returns to something like we knew previously.

“We plan to conduct another survey later in the year to find out if the dramatic changes we’ve seen in attitudes and actions around complaining are a temporary phenomenon or something longer lasting.”

Jodi Hamilton, director of relationships at Trust Alliance Group

The seventh annual Consumer Action Report is due to be published by Trust Alliance Group later this year.