With social media already a significant medium for complaints for the telecoms and utilities sectors it is spreading deeper into financial services due to its immediacy, Adam Green, chief risk officer for Equiniti, said.

His firm said financial services must be ready for a similar trend to develop.

Equiniti’s research found that social media is a clearly emerging complaint channel within the industry, currently representing around 10 per cent of complaints, with its importance growing.

Respondents to the firm’s recent survey estimated that the number of complaints via social media would have almost tripled to 28% in five years.

Companies must be prepared for ever more proactive customers armed with quicker and more public ways to voice dissatisfaction, Equiniti said.

Some 44% of professionals who were polled at a recent conference by Equiniti felt that the broadening of avenues for people to express dissatisfaction, which could include new forms of social media, would have the greatest impact on complaint volumes.

This was followed by an increased propensity for people to claim (40%) and an increase in regulation (16%).

Some 42 per cent suggested they would be able to handle consumer complaints more efficiently if the FCA relaxed its rules relating to social media. They said it could help them more effectively engage with their customers.

Today the most common complaint channels are post, email and telephone, representing 25 per cent, 29 per cent and 46 per cent of customer complaints respectively.

Complaints in person represent only 14 per cent of complaints.

Telephone and email (with both channels representing 37 per cent of complaints) were predicted to remain the biggest complaints channels, but their importance will have decreased relative to social media, survey respondents suggested.

Adam Green, chief risk officer for Equiniti, said: "Our industry needs to be prepared for an increase in the speed of customer complaints, changes in the way customers complain and for complaints to become more visible through the use of social media.

“The immediacy of social media will continue to change the dynamics of complaint handling. It presents exciting opportunities for companies to publically stand out in the way they engage with their customers and address customer questions and concerns. Companies who are slow to respond to these changes risk losing customers to more ‘in touch’ rivals and potentially weakening their brand.

“Changing attitudes and increased use of technology means the financial services industry needs to continue to rise to the challenge of greater complaints transparency. Demonstrating understanding and empathy with customers, backed up by robust systems, will become a true differentiator for agile companies."