An over lengthy process with poor communication

We submitted our application on 14th April and finally received our mortgage offer on Weds 20th May which means the entire process took five weeks. I feel that this was an extraordinarily long timescale. What exacerbated this was the apparent lack of communication from the person I dealt with during this period. As time went on my wife and I became increasingly concerned about why the application was apparently taking so long to process. In the fourth and fifth week, it felt like I was alone in chasing the matter and asking him for updates. The reason I chose L&C was because work colleagues recommended the company and my wife and I liked the idea of L&C acting on our behalf and saving us hassle. I can't help but think it would have been a lot easier and less stressful to go direct to Natwest. In my opinion our application was a simple one. I don't feel we ever had an explanation as to why L&C or Natwest seemed to take so long and communicating that explanation was very poor.