Research summary: complaints that come to us too early

Sometimes when people bring a complaint to us it’s not ready for us to investigate. We call these premature complaints. When this happens, the person complaining to us needs to go back to the organisation they complained about or their MP.

But only about 27% of complainants return to us. We commissioned Opinion Research Services (ORS) to find out what happens when complainants come to us too soon and why they do not return to us with their complaint. They conducted an online survey with more than 1,000 complainants along with 25 in-depth interviews.

You can download a summary of the research findings below.