Your Money, Your Voice: Have your say

We’re calling on all financial services customers across the UK to leave reviews for financial providers as part of our ‘Your Money, Your Voice’ campaign. Your reviews will encourage the financial industry to sit up and listen to what their customers need and want.

Despite the implementation of the FCA’s Consumer Duty a year ago, there’s still more to do to improve the level of service in the UK financial industry.

In a study of 2,000 consumers in collaboration with our sister site, Be Clever With Your Cash1, a significant majority (84%) of consumers told us they’ve seen no improvement in services. 7% report worsening levels of service.

Impact of the FCA’s Consumer Duty

The Duty which came into force in July 2023, sets out to financial organisations that the standard of care needs to be raised for consumers with a particular focus on vulnerable customers.

In our study, a proportion of people self-reported on criteria which would consider them to be vulnerable by the FCA. These customers highlight access to ‘real people’ as the most important factor for a positive service experience.

What’s most concerning is that 81% of these customers said they’d seen no positive improvement in the way their financial services companies treated them over the past 12 months.

Untrained staff and chatbots cause biggest frustrations

Our study revealed the biggest frustrations UK consumers have with financial services companies that cause them to change providers:

●No access to human support (48%)

●Untrained staff (34%)

●No available phone number (32%)

●Over-reliance on chatbots (24%)

Personal loan and buy now, pay later customers were the least satisfied with the service they’ve received. The top reasons consumers were dissatisfied were over-reliance on ‘live chats’ (30%) and poor customer communications (28%). 22% of people also reported a negative experience due to unempathetic staff members.

Smart Money People review findings

In addition to our survey, we also analysed reviews left over the last 12 months on the Smart Money People platform² to understand service levels across the industry.

We found health insurer reviews received the lowest satisfaction scores³, followed by pension providers. Our analysis indicates that health insurance customers are more willing to review providers. Many were submitted following a claims experience, suggesting that a specific event is triggering people to actively feedback.

Financial products with the most positive feedback

Our study found that prepaid account and current account customers are the happiest with their providers. This sentiment was echoed across the Smart Money People site with the most positive reviews coming from current account customers.

Our study also revealed that efficient service (49%) and knowledgeable staff (33%) lead to the most satisfied customers.

Your Money, Your Voice

Smart Money People is the UK’s most comprehensive customer review site for financial products and services.

More than two million reviews have been shared to date, helping people make smarter financial decisions and providing financial services companies with a true picture of what customers think and need.

Every review helps drive positive change in the financial industry because providers have a clear picture of what they’re doing well and where they can improve. Whether it’s good or bad, your honest feedback also helps future customers navigate their financial decisions with more confidence.

Leave a review with Smart Money People

Have your voice heard by leaving reviews with Smart Money People using these five simple steps:

1) Head to the 'Write a review’ page

2) Search for the company and product

3) Rate your experience

4) Share more detail about your experience and give a title that sums up your review

5) Verify your review through Facebook or Google or by confirming your email address

¹ Smart Money People commissioned a survey of 2,000 UK adults with Opinium Research. The survey ran 21 – 25 June 2024.

² An analysis of Smart Money People’s customer reviews which have been submitted in the past 12 months was conducted in June 2024.

³ The lowest reviews refers to the sectors which receive the highest percentage of 1* reviews by Smart Money People users