Customer Satisfaction and Complaints Policy

Purpose of this policy

The purpose of this policy is to regularly assess and monitor the quality of service provided to customers/clients of Change Please; identifying, assessing, and managing risk relating the quality of services provided.

Introduction

Change Please regularly welcome the views, complaints, comments and feedback of customers/clients and employees, on all aspects of our services; such feedback is invaluable in helping the company to evaluate and improve our work.

Change Please:
• Is committed to providing a good standard of quality services to customers, other agencies, and organisations.
• will take seriously any concern or complaint and will investigate it promptly, for resolution as quickly as possible.
• recognises that all customers, agencies, and organisations:
- have the right to raise concerns or complaints about our services.
- have access to clear information on how to voice complaints and concerns.

Change Please:
 • will produce this policy and procedure to anyone who asks for it.
 • will have a regard to the complaints and comments made, views expressed by customer/client’s and those acting on their behalf.
 • will deal with complaints in line with the Change Please Confidentiality policy.
 • will carry out any investigation in relation to the complaint or comment made to improve the service offered.
 • will keep a register of all complaints, which will be reviewed regularly by the Board of Change Please
 • will carry out compliance reports, periodic and specific reviews, and investigations to understand the areas of improvements.
 • the complaints procedure will be part of the process of monitoring the quality, effectiveness, and non-discriminatory nature of its services.
 • will make changes, when necessary, to the service provided to reflect the collected information.
 • will request, when necessary, an external professional and expert advice.
 • All employees are required to read, understand, and comply with this policy and its procedures.

Training Delivery

In order to provide a quality service, Change Please requires all staff to be suitable trained, supervised and supported.

Line managers (in conjunction with HR), will support the following:
 • Each member of staff will have a personal development plan/portfolio in which their training needs are identified, and a plan made on how such needs are met.
 • Each staff member will be required to complete mandatory training upon joining the business, and at various intervals throughout the course of employment.

Definition of a complaint

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction by an individual, whether justified or not. An individual may make a complaint if they feel Change Please has:

• Failed to provide a service or an acceptable standard of service or made a mistake in the way the service was provided.
• Failed to act in a proper way.
• Provided an unfair service.

Concern or Complaint
It is important to establish the difference between a concern and a complaint. Taking informal concerns seriously at the earliest stage will reduce the likelihood of their developing into formal complaints.

 Any concerns about our work/services must be communicated to our employees or their manager as soon as possible, so they can quickly understand the concerns and try to put things right.

If an individual is unhappy with the response to a concern and/or the individual wishes to make a formal complaint, the following procedure below should be followed.

Complaints Procedure

Change Please aim to settle the majority of complaints quickly and satisfactorily by the member of staff who provides the service.

The complaint may be resolved quickly by way of an apology or by an acceptable explanation to the individual.

There are three stages to the complaint’s procedure:
Stage One – the complaint
Stage Two – investigation
Stage Three – appeal

Stage One - Complaint
• The complaint can be written or if the individual prefers, they can tell someone at Change Please, or someone else, who will write it down for them. The complainant will need to sign it.
 • Individuals wishing to make a complaint should contact the person who provided the service, or their line manager.
• The complaint should include the complainants name and address, the nature and date of the complaint and how they want to see it resolved.
• On receipt, each complaint will be allocated a reference number and logged on the complaints register. Complainants must receive an acknowledgement within 3 working days of receipt of a signed complaint.

Stage Two - Investigation
• All complaints at this stage should be dealt with by a manager. If they need to meet with the complainant, they will do so within seven working days of receiving the written complaint.
• Complaints will be fully investigated, and a written response provided to the complainant within 10 working days by the investigator.
• The complainant will receive written confirmation of the outcome of any investigation any recommendations/remedies made, such as reviewing of policies, staff development and training or appropriate improvement to our services.
• Where the complaint is upheld, an apology should be offered.
• Occasionally investigations may take longer, particularly if the complaint is complex. Should this be the case a holding letter will be sent after ten working days and a final date given for a conclusion to be reached.
• If an individual remains dissatisfied with the outcome from Stage Two, they can appeal within fourteen working days of the date of the outcome and progress to Stage Three.
• The complaints register will be updated, and any pending complaints flagged so they are followed up.

Stage Three - Appeal
• If the complaint cannot be resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction at stage two, or if the manager feels that the complaint is of a very serious nature or concerns a service leader then it will be referred to the Director.
• If the complaint is about the Director, then the matter will be discussed an alternative Director.
• The Director will acknowledge receipt within three working days, they will review the Stage Two investigation and recommend one of the following actions within ten working days (from the date the complainant stated they wanted to take the complaint to stage 3):
 • Uphold the action taken at Stage Two
• Make changes to the Stage Two recommendation/actions.
• The complainant should be informed in writing of the outcome of stage three, the decision reached about this complaint will then be final but other options available to the complainant (as listed below) should be detailed in the letter.
• If after Change Please has been through the three stages and the complainant is still not satisfied with the result, they should be advised that there is no further right of appeal with Change Please but they could approach any of the following agencies for advice:
• A solicitor
• Citizens Advice Bureau
• This should be done within one month of receiving the outcome from the appeal.

Anonymous complaints
 
Complaints received anonymously will be recorded and considered, but action may be limited if further information is required to ensure a full and fair investigation.

Data protection

To process a complaint, comment, or feedback, Change Please will hold personal data about the complainant, which the individual provides, and which other people give in response to the complaint, comment or feedback.

Change Please will hold this data securely and only use it to address the information. The identity of the person making the complaint, comment or feedback will only be known to those who need to consider the information and will not be revealed to other people or made public. However, it may not be possible to preserve confidentiality in some circumstances, for example, where relevant legislation applied, or allegations are made which involve the conduct of third parties.

Change Please will normally destroy complaints, comments o feedback files in a secure manner 6 years after the investigation has been closed.

Monitoring

Complaints are an important tool which, alongside data provided by exit surveys, surveys, user feedback and focus groups, will allow us to learn about the services we provide. They provide a useful source of information about how individuals see our services and how we are serving them. To ensure we can learn from complaints the following data will be collected:
• Name and address
• Name of person dealing with the complaint
• Date of complaint and response
• Nature of complaint
• Action(s) taken/recommendations made in response to the complaint lessons learnt.

Change Please ensure that decisions in relation to providing and monitoring the quality of service provided to customer/clients are taken at the appropriate level by the Head of each department and the HR Manager.

All complaints, comments and feedback must be provided in writing to complaintsandcomments@changeplease.org