Complaints
Nobody's perfect ... and that includes customers!
- Misunderstandings arise and some disagreements are inevitable.
- Firms will sometimes face criticism from customers with 'unreasonable' expectations.
- Firms will receive occasional criticism which, with the best will in the world, they are unable to resolve.
- Consumers should welcome a firm's honesty in publishing complaints as well as praise.
- Consumers should place a greater value on a consistent pattern of forms returned with few complaints rather than a small number of 'selective' references with no complaints.
Referenceline's role
We are not responsible for settling disagreements between firms and their customers, but we will take reasonable steps to encourage the resolution of any complaints. If we receive a form with any rating of 3 or less, we will promptly send a copy of that form to the firm concerned (preferably by email or fax).
We will defer publication of the form:
- In any case: for 20 days.
- If the customer tells us that they are satisfied that the firm intends to resolve their complaint beyond the 20 days, then we will continue to withhold publication of the form.
- If the complaint has not previously been raised with the firm then we reserve the right to extend this period at our absolute discretion.
- If the customer sends us a replacement form, then we will publish this.
- If we do not receive a replacement form, then we will publish the original.
- We may contact the customer if we feel it is appropriate to do so.
Other
We are not obliged to review every comment, but we will not knowingly publish any feedback which we, at our sole discretion, consider inappropriate (e.g. abusive, personal, obscene, offensive or threatening) and we will not enter into correspondence about this. [This has only happened twice in 10 years and over 70,000 responses].
We will send a form to any customer that tells us they have not been able to obtain a form directly from the firm and we may contact them for more information. We will contact the firm and, if we are not satisfied by their explanations then we may, at our sole discretion, take other action including suspension or deregistration.
The customer's role
- Customers should first raise their complaint with the firm, following any reasonable complaints procedure used by the firm.
- Concerns must be expressed in a constructive way, giving the name of the person with whom the issue has been discussed and preferably suggesting how the problem might be avoided in future.
- Website users need to know that complaints will be published in order to have confidence in the overall results, but complaints and comments on replacement forms should fairly reflect the facts and the firm's efforts to deal with the complaint.
Naming and Shaming
Some firms (or even consumers and journalists) may try to abuse our system.
- We reserve the right to publish the full details of any individual or organisation associated with any such activity at www.namingandshaming.com which we have registered for this purpose.
- By using Referenceline, firms agree that we may do this.