Dunstable Executive Cars Complaints Procedure Introduction

Dunstable Executive Cars endeavours to uphold high standards in customer service, and we welcome feedback from individuals, users of our services and anyone who works with us, in all aspects of our service. We see all feedback as invaluable, and it helps us to evaluate and improve our service. The objective of our complaints policy and procedure is to:

• Ensure everyone is aware of how to address customer concerns and how they may be handled.
• Ensure that complaints are dealt with fairly, sensitively and consistently within a reasonable time frame.
• Provide everyone with a fair and effective way to complain about our service.
• Ensure that customer concerns are monitored to help improve our service. We therefore ensure that we:
• Will listen carefully to all customer concerns and will treat complaints as confidential, where possible.
• Record, store, and manage all customer concerns accurately and under the Data Protection Act
• Investigate all complaints fully, objectively and within a reasonable time frame.
• Notify the complainant of the results of the investigation, which includes the action implemented (if any) to ensure a similar incident does not recur.

Policy Statement

Dunstable Executive Cars

• Is committed to providing a good standard of quality services to ALL customers.
• Will take seriously any concern or complaint and will investigate it promptly, aiming for resolution as quickly as possible.
• Will deal with all customer concerns confidentially (where possible.
• Will keep a register of all complaints.
• Will ensure that our complaints procedure (as a document or webpage) is available to anyone who asks for it.

• Recognises that our complaints procedure will be part of the process of monitoring the quality, effectiveness, and non-discriminatory nature of its services.

We recognise that all service users, agencies and organisations:

• Have the right to raise concerns or customer concerns about our service. • Should have access to clear information about how to voice complaints and concerns, which is available on our website. • Our customer concerns procedure is open to everyone who receives or requests a service from Dunstable Executive Cars and people acting on their behalf.

Definition of a Complaint

The definition of a customer concern is ‘A statement that something is unsatisfactory or unacceptable’, this is regardless of whether the complaint is justifiable or not. An individual, service user or organisation may raise a customer concern for any number of reasons. Listed below are some of the most common:

• They feel Dunstable Executive Cars failed to provide a service or an ‘acceptable’ standard of service.
• They feel Dunstable Executive Cars or one of its employees mishandled a situation.
• They feel Dunstable Executive Cars or on of its employees provided an ‘unfair’ service.
• This policy and procedure relate only to Customer concerns received about Dunstable Executive Cars and its services.

Concern or Complaint

It is important to establish the difference between concern and a customer’s concerns. Taking informal concerns seriously at the earliest stage will reduce the likelihood of concerns developing into formal complaints. We therefore ask that any individual, service user or organisation with a concern about our service report this to a member of staff or via our website, at their earliest convenience, for us to understand and attempt to de-escalate concerns at our earliest opportunity. If an individual is unhappy with the response to their concern and/or wants to make a formal customer complaint, please follow the procedure below.

Complaints Procedure

Dunstable Executive Cars aims to settle the majority of customer concerns quickly and adequately, which could be by way of an apology or an acceptable explanation to the complainant. There are three stages to the customer concerns procedure:

• Stage 1 – The complaint
• Stage 2 – Investigation Stage

One: The Complaint The complaint

can be written, or if the complainant prefers, they can discuss the customer concerns with a member of staff who can express this for them via the staff website. A complaint form is also available to use on our website The customer concerns should include the complainant’s name, pick up address, telephone number, nature or the complaint and, where possible, details of the service used, such as booking time and date. Individuals, service users or organisations wishing to make customer concerns should contact Dunstable Executive Cars via: Website: https://dunstablexecutivecars.co.uk/complaint/ Email: dunstablexecutivecars@hotmail.com Post: Dunstable Executive Cars Unit 19 Apex Business Centre Boscombe Road Dunstable LU5 4SB

Stage Two – Investigation

All customer concerns will be managed by the customer service team. The customer service team may delegate parts of the investigation to the office manager or the allocated director, where necessary. If the customer’s concerns involve a Dunstable Executive Cars driver, the customer service team must thoroughly investigate the customer’s concern, which includes checking booking details, relevant calls, and mapping of a job (where relevant). Dunstable Executive Cars aims to provide an outcome to all customer concerns within 5 working days, which allows for a thorough investigation. Occasionally, our investigations may take longer, particularly if the complaint is complex or if we require evidence from a third party. We aim to provide the complainant with details of the outcome and resolution, where appropriate. The outcome will not refer to any individual employees, drivers or groups of employees. Where the customer’s concerns are upheld, an apology should be offered. If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the outcome from Stage Tw,o they can appeal within 5 working days of the date of the outcome and progress to Stage Three.

Anonymous Complaints

Complaints received anonymously will be recorded and considered, but action may be limited if further information is required; this helps us ensure a full and fair investigation.

Data Protection

To process customer concerns, Dunstable Executive Cars will hold personal data about the complainant, which the individual provides and which other people give in response to the complaint. Dunstable Executive Cars will hold this data securely and only use it to address the customer’s concerns. The identity of the person making the complaint will only be known to those who need to consider the customer’s concerns and will not be revealed to other people or made public by Dunstable Executive Cars. However, it may not be possible to preserve confidentiality in some circumstances, for example, where relevant legislation applies or allegations are made which involve the conduct of third parties. Dunstable Executive Cars will typically securely destroy complaints files, 1 year after the customer’s concerns have been closed.

Monitoring

Complaints are an important tool which, alongside data provided by surveys and user feedback, will allow Dunstable Executive Cars to learn about and better 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 Dunstable Executive Cars can learn from customer concerns, the following data will be collected (where possible): • Name, Address and Telephone Number • Name of person dealing with the customer concerns • Date of customer concerns and response • Nature of customer concerns • Action(s) taken / recommendations made in response to the customer concerns • Lessons learnt