Complaints Policy
Complaints Policy, Process and Procedures
Complaints Policy
The Letting Partnership welcomes and encourages feedback of all kinds from our client agents. If you have a Complaint about our services, our customer service, or about our employees not only do we want to resolve it to your satisfaction, but we also want to learn from it in order to improve our business and customer experience in the future.
It is our policy to resolve Complaints quickly and fairly, where possible without recourse to formal investigations or external bodies. In particular, the aims of this Complaints Policy are:
1. To provide a clear and fair procedure for any customers who wish to make a Complaint about The Letting Partnership our services, our customer service, or about our employees;
2. To ensure that everyone working for or with The Letting Partnership knows how to handle Complaints made by our client agents;3. To ensure that all Complaints are handled equally and in a fair and timely fashion;
4. To ensure that important information is gathered from Complaints and used in the future to avoid such a situation arising again.
What Our Complaints Policy Covers
1. This Complaints Policy applies to our services, to our customer service and to our employees.
2. For the purposes of this Complaints Policy, any reference to The Letting Partnership also includes our employees.
3. Complaints may relate to any of our activities and may include (but not be limited to):
a. The quality of customer service you have received from us;
b. The behaviour and/or professional competence of our employees;
Process & Procedure
The Letting Partnership operates a two-stage complaints handling procedure.
Following our Complaints Procedure, our aim is to always resolve Complaints to your satisfaction at Level One without further recourse to Level Two.
If you are not satisfied at the end of Level One, you may escalate your Complaint to Level Two
Level One:
1. Upon receipt of your Complaint, the relevant Team Leader or Department Manager will log the Complaint in our complaints log and will acknowledge receipt of it in writing within 5 working days.
2. When we acknowledge receipt of your Complaint we will also provide details of your Complaint Handler. This may be the Team Leader or Department Manager to whom your original Complaint was directed or your Complaint may be assigned to another appropriate member of our organisation.
3. If your Complaint relates to a specific employee that person will be informed of your Complaint and given a fair and reasonable opportunity to We respectfully ask that you do not contact the employee in question directly concerning the Complaint while we are working to resolve it.
4. If we require any further information or evidence from you, the Complaint Handler will contact you as quickly as is reasonably possible to ask for it. We ask that you use reasonable efforts to supply any such information or evidence quickly in order to avoid delaying the complaints handling If you are for any reason unable to provide such information or evidence we will use all reasonable efforts to proceed without it, however please be aware that we will not ask for further information or evidence unless we consider it important to the successful resolution of your Complaint.
5. We aim to resolve Level One Complaints within 10 working days, however in some cases, particularly if your Complaint is of a complex nature, this may not be possible. If this is not possible for any reason you will be informed of the delay, the likely length of the delay and the reasons for it.
6. At the conclusion of the Level One complaints procedure, regardless of the outcome, we will provide you with full details of our investigation, our conclusions from that investigation, and any action taken as a result. You will also be reminded of your right to appeal our decision and escalate the complaint to Level Two in the form of an Appeal.
Level Two:
1. If you are not satisfied with the resolution of your complaint at Level One, you may appeal the decision within 5 working days, and have the complaint escalated to Level Appeals are handled by Directors of the company.
2. If your Complaint relates to a specific employee that person will be informed of your Appeal and given a further opportunity to We respectfully ask that you do not contact the employee in question directly concerning the Complaint while we are working to resolve it.
3. If we require any further information or evidence from you, the Appeal Handler will contact you as quickly as is reasonably possible to ask for We ask that you use reasonable efforts to supply any such information or evidence to us quickly in order to avoid delaying the complaints handling process. If you are for any reason unable to provide such information or evidence we will use all reasonable efforts to proceed without it, however please be aware that we will not ask for further information or evidence unless we consider it important to the successful resolution of your Complaint.
4. We aim to resolve Level Two Complaints within 5 working days, however in some cases, particularly if your Complaint is of a complex nature, this may not be possible. If this is not possible for any reason you will be informed of the delay, the likely length of the delay and the reasons for it.
5. At the conclusion of the Level Two procedure, regardless of the outcome, we will provide you with full details of our investigation, our conclusions from that investigation, and any action taken as a result. Our decision at this stage is final. As we are a member of Propertymark and The Property Ombudsman you, as our customer, have the right to seek External Resolution of your Complaint from that organisation if you are not satisfied with the outcome of your Level Two
Confidentiality and Data Protection
All Complaints and information relating thereto are treated with the utmost confidence. Such information will only be shared with those employees of The Letting Partnership who need to know in order to handle your Complaint.
We may ask for your permission to use details of your Complaint (with your personal details removed) for internal training and quality improvement purposes. If you have given such permission, you may revoke it at any time by contacting Jennifer Markham Managing Director The Letting Partnership
All personal information that we may collect (including, but not limited to, your name and address) will be collected, used and held in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and your rights under that Act.
Questions and Further Information
If you have any questions or require further information about any aspect of this Complaints Policy or about our Complaints Procedure, please contact Jennifer Markham Managing Director by post at The Letting Partnership 2nd Floor 3 Liverpool Gardens Worthing West Sussex BN11 1TF by telephone on 01903 477900 or by email at jennifer.markham@thelettingpartnership.co.uk.