What to do if you are dissatisfied
We pride ourselves on providing high standards of customer service and care. However, we accept that there may be times when we do not achieve these standards or fall short of the standards you expect of us. If this happens we will make every effort to resolve any outstanding problems quickly and to your satisfaction. The procedure we will follow is set out below.
Our procedure
Details of your complaint will be logged onto our central complaints system, which enables us to monitor the progress of the investigation.
Your complaint will be passed to a Complaint Officer, who is a senior official who has not previously been involved in the matter which is the subject of your complaint.
The Complaint Officer will obtain and review a copy of your client file and prepare a summary of the records we hold. We will ask for reports from relevant staff, representatives or any other person, if we feel this will assist us in our enquiries.
All complaints will be acknowledged within five working days of receipt. The letter will include:
- An outline of our understanding of the basis of your complaint
- The name of the Complaints Officer who will be investigating your complaint
- Confirmation that we will contact you again within four weeks of the date of receipt of your complaint, to provide our final response or to let you know why we cannot do so
- Details of your right to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service and enclose an explanatory leaflet "Your complaint and the Ombudsman".
If we are able to finalise our investigation into your complaint within five business days the acknowledgement would be included as part of our final response to you. The procedures for assessment of your complaint and the final response letter are explained below.
We may contact you to ask you for further information to clarify some points. This may take the form of a questionnaire, which we will ask you to deal with as soon as possible to help us resolve the complaint quickly.
If we have not completed our investigation within less than four weeks, we will write to you giving you a further update. If at the end of eight weeks we have not been able to complete our investigation we will provide a further update and advise you that at that time you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Assessment of your complaint
When we have received all the relevant information, the Complaint Officer will assess the complaint and prepare a report for presentation to a Complaints Committee, which will include at least two directors of the Company. The Committee will review the investigation and come to a decision on your complaint, after which we will write to you setting out the results of the investigation. We refer to this as our ‘final response letter’.
Our final response letter
The final response we send you will explain how we have reached our conclusion and set down the terms of any redress or compensation payable, if appropriate. It will also remind you of your referral rights and the fact that any referral to the Ombudsman must be made within 6 months of the date of our final response letter to you.