Complaint Resolution
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Friday, 31 May, 2019 - 11:34
Complaint Resolution
Case Manager activities
Establish issues to be resolved
The process places more emphasis on engaging wherever possible with customers on the
phone. The initial contact call, which should be made with 48 hours of receipt, is primarily to
identify the issues the customer wishes to have addressed and the resolutio n they are
seeking. In some cases, it may be possible to resolve the complaint during this initial call.
In most cases, it will be to confirm what the customer wants investigated. Once you have
established that, you need to explain what will happen next such as evidence gathering, and
manage their expectations in terms of how long it is likely to take with the aimed deadline for
response 15 working days from the date DWP received their complaint.
The reason for managing their expectations is to prevent the customer making unnecessary
contact with the department while you are investigating their complaint. For complaints that
are likely to take some time, it is good practice to build in update calls to keep the customer
abreast of developments. This again prevents unnecessary contact and also builds your
relationship with them, which may help when it comes to explaining the outcome when your
investigation is complete.
For complaints about staff, it is recommended you acknowledge the complaint by letter rather
than phone call. Your objectivity and independence could be compromised when speaking
about staff behaviour and you should not venture an opinion about it. The complaint should be
acknowledged and that an investigation will take place only
In some cases, for example
vulnerable customers the phone may not be the most
appropriate method to contact the customer. That said, early phone contact may be even
more important. It is critical you look into this before you make contact.
For
Unreasonable Persistent Customer Contact (UPCC) and other known vexatious
customers, we recommend you restrict your contact to written messages only. The CRT is not
resourced or designed to be a single point of contact for anything other than the issues raised
in the complaint for the duration of the investigation.
Ideally you would establish a direct phone-based relationship with the customer because it
prevents unnecessary contact elsewhere in DWP and the potential for complaint double -
handling. However, use your judgement on a case-by-case basis to determine whether you
consider it appropriate to offer your direct contact details.
Investigates Issues
From your initial call with the customer you have established what needs to be looked at and
you can begin to investigate using the systems and colleagues in Service Delivery to establish
the facts. The investigation will in most cases consist of two elements. The first is direct
system access of the relevant customer records. The second is responses to questions you
ask colleagues which will largely be informed by the evidence you uncover from the systems
you look at and the evidence you have obtained from the customer.
It is important to obtain assurance for the information you’ve been given. You should not
accept information that has not been validated.
Once all of the facts and evidence are in your possession, your investigation should follow a
logical path by establishing what happened, what should have happened and where we have
made mistakes, the root cause of those mistakes.
For complaints about staff, as case manager, your role is to obtain assurance th at the
Guidance on staff complaints has been followed. Your role is not to investigate the member
of staff. That investigation should be undertaken from within the line management chain or
most appropriate office manager.
Owing to the process that must be followed for staff complaints, they may take longer than 15
working days to complete. In these circumstances, if it is clear it will take longer than that, you
should agree a Resolution Plan with the complainant
. By doing this, you will meet the
requirement for meeting the response target and manage the customer’s expectations at the
same time. A substantive holding reply means you are giving the customer a full progress
update, not just explaining the investigation is taking longer than expected.
On concluding your investigation there are three possible outcomes: Upheld, Part Upheld or
Not Upheld. The definition of these are:
Complaint
Definition
category
Upheld
We agree that the service provided in each of the issues the customer raised was
below the standard expected and redress is appropriate such as an apology.
Not Upheld
It is decided that upon investigation we did not provide a service below the standards
we expect.
Partially
In cases where the customer raises more than one issue, the CRM agrees that a poor
Upheld
service was provided in some, but not all, of the issues the customer raised and
applies redress to the issues upheld.
Justified
Justified should be selected for complaints where we agree the customer was right to
(For CCRT)
complain, but the action we have already taken to resolve it is sufficient.
In cases where you have either Upheld or Part Upheld the customer’s complaint, you need to
determine the level of redress. In most cases this will be a formal apology for the level of
service and/or errors that happened and an assurance that remedial a ction has been taken
and that it won’t happen again.
With staff complaints, if you do not have the assurance the HR guidance has been followed,
and an investigation conducted properly, you must uphold the customer’s complaint.
However, as part of the redress question, you should consider whether the errors are
sufficient enough to warrant a
Special Payment . At this level, your Delegated Financial
Authority (DFA) is £250 for Actual Financial Loss and £100 Consolatory. Follow the link to find
the Special Payment guidance and how to make an award. Payments for consideration above
these levels need to be sent to the
Special Payment Team. If there is insufficient evidence to determine a Special Payment you should give the customer
the opportunity at this point to provide additional supporting evidence before you make your
decision. The reason for this is to give the customer and DWP every opportunity to resolve the
complaint at the first attempt and reduce the risk of an escalated complaint because the
customer felt the redress was inadequate or not addressed.
Phones Customer with outcome
For cases you have Upheld or Part Upheld, if you have awarded a Special Payment, explain
how much has been awarded and how and when that will be paid.
Irrespective of the conclusion you have drawn, you need to signpost the customer to the
Complaint and Correspondence Review Team (CCRT). For cases you did not uphold and
the customer clearly remains dissatisfied, take proactive action and escalate the case to the
Review Team.
Case Conference
For cases where the customer remains dissatisfied, if you feel with a little extra work it is
possible to resolve it, consider a case conference with your colleagues and/or manager to
determine whether you can take the additional steps to resolve the complaint.
Finally, in all cases, it is important to manage customer expectations to reduce the risk of
follow-up avoidable contact and escalation, and allow sufficient time for us to take the action
we need to.
If you are giving feedback to a team or site that involves a recommendation to take remedial
action, you need to discuss with the receiving team a reasonable amount of time in which to
take the action and inform you it has been done. This does not have to be rigid; the
complexity of the issue will influence the deadline for response. For example, a simple remedy
may attract a one-week deadline for response; a more complex issue two weeks or more.
In doing this, consider whether the issue you have raised with them is a one -off or a possible
trend. If you consider this to be a trend, such as this is third complaint in a row about it, inform
your manager
Systemic issues can be local to a team or site, or be a risk nationally. However, we won’t
know this if we don’t capture the evidence. Systemic issue details will be maintained by the
CRT manager.
The final action you need to take is to close the complaint. If you have logged the complaint at
the start under a category or categories but following investigation it ended up more relevant
to another or others, make sure you change it before closing the complaint.
Complaint Review (CCRT)
Establish issues to be resolved
The process places more emphasis on engaging wherever possible with customers on the
phone. The initial contact call is primarily to identify the issues the customer remains
dissatisfied with and the resolution they are seeking. In some cases, it may be possible to
resolve the complaint during this initial call.
In most cases, it will be to confirm what the customer wants investigated. Once you have
established that, you need to explain what will happen next such as evidence gathering, and
manage their expectations in terms of how long it is likely to take with the aimed deadline for
response 15 working days from the date we received their complaint in DWP, or if a POS
case complaint, the deadline is 20 working days.
The reason for managing their expectations is to prevent the customer making unnecessary
contact with the department while you are investigating their complaint. For complaints that
are likely to take some time, it is good practice to build in update calls to keep the customer
abreast of developments. This again prevents unnecessary contact and also builds your
relationship with them, which may help when it comes to explaining the outcome when your
investigation is complete.
For complaints about staff, it is recommended you acknowledge the complaint by letter rather
than phone call. Your objectivity and independence could be compromise d when speaking
about staff behaviour and you should not venture an opinion about it. The complaint should be
acknowledged and that an investigation will take place only.
In some cases, for example
vulnerable customers the phone may not be the most
appropriate method to contact the customer. That said, early phone contact may be even
more important. It is critical you look into this before you make contact.
For
Unreasonable Persistent Customer Contact (UPCC) and other known vexatious
customers, we recommend you restrict your contact to written or SMS text messages only.
The CRT is not resourced or designed to be a single point of contact for anything other than
the issues raised in the complaint for the duration of the investigation.
Ideally you would establish a direct phone-based relationship with the customer because it
prevents unnecessary contact elsewhere in DWP and the potential for complaint double -
handling. However, use your judgement on a case-by-case basis to determine whether you
consider it appropriate to offer your direct contact details.
eCase as a Case Management system will provide an auditable footprint of your investigation,
the evidence to support the complaint was handled independently, and a feedback summary
to the site/team relevant to the complaint.
Feeding back to CRT’s about Justified complaints is positive feedback about their complaint
handling quality.
Investigates Issues
From your initial call with the customer you have established what needs to be looked at and
you can begin to investigate using the systems and colleagues in Service Delivery. The
investigation will in most cases consist of two elements. The first is direct system access of
the relevant customer records. The second is responses to questions you ask colleagues via
the
contributions which will largely be informed by the evidence you uncover from the systems
you look at and evidence you have obtained from the customer.
It is important to obtain assurance for the information you’ve been given. You should not
accept information that has not been validated
Once all of the facts and evidence are in your possession, your investigation should follow a
logical path by establishing what happened, what should have happened and where we have
made mistakes, the root cause of those mistakes..
For complaints about staff, as case manager, your role is to obtain assurance that the
Guidance on staff complaints has been followed. Your role is not to investigate the
member of staff. That investigation should be undertaken from within the line management
chain or most appropriate office manager.
Owing to the process that must be followed for staff complaints, they may take longer than 15
working days to complete. In these circumstances, if it is clear it will take longer than that, you
should agree a Resolution Plan
. By doing this, you will meet the requirement for meeting the
response target and manage the customer’s expectations at the same time. A substantive
holding reply means you are giving the customer a full progress update, not just explaining
the investigation is taking longer than expected.
On concluding your investigation there are four possible outcomes: Upheld, Part Upheld, Not
Upheld and Justified. In cases where you have either Upheld or Part Upheld the customer’s
complaint, you need to determine the level of redress. In most cases this will be a formal
apology for the level of service and/or errors that happened and an assurance that remedial
action has been taken and that it won’t happen again.
With staff complaints, if you do not have the assurance the HR guidance has been followed,
and an investigation conducted properly, you must uphold the customer’s complaint.
However, as part of the redress assessment, you should consider whether the errors are
sufficient and the evidence available to warrant a
Special Payment. At this level, your
Delegated Financial Authority (DFA) is £250 for Actual Financial Loss and £100 Consolatory.
Follow the link to find the Special Payment guidance and how to make an award. Payments
for consideration above these levels, and payments requiring a review, need to be sent to the
Special Payment Team. Once you have determined an award is appropriate, and is within your Delegated Financial
Authority (DFA) amount, complete the action to pay the award.
If there is insufficient evidence to determine a Special Payment you should give the customer
the opportunity at this point to provide additional supporting evidence before you make your
decision. The reason for this is to give the customer and DWP every opportunity to resolve the
complaint at the first attempt and reduce the risk of an escalated complaint be cause the
customer felt the redress was inadequate or not addressed.
Phones Customer with outcome
For cases you have Upheld or Part Upheld, if you have awarded a Special Payment, explain
how much has been awarded and how and when that will be paid.
Irrespective of the conclusion you have drawn, you need to signpost the customer to ICE.
Case Conference
For cases where the customer remains dissatisfied, if you feel with a little extra work it is
possible to resolve it, consider a case conference with your colleagues and/or manager to
determine whether you can take the additional steps to resolve the compl aint.
Finally, in all cases, it is important to manage customer expectations to reduce the risk of
follow-up avoidable contact and escalation, and allow sufficient time for us to take the action
we need to.
Feedback
If you are giving feedback to a CRT that involves a recommendation to take remedial action,
you need to discuss with the receiving team a reasonable amount of time in which to take the
action and inform you it has been done. This does not have to be rigid; the complexity of the
issue will influence the deadline for response. For example, a simple remedy may attract a
one-week deadline for response; a more complex issue two weeks or more.
When updating the case, consider whether the issue you have dealt with is a one -off or a
possible trend. If you consider this to be a trend, such as this is third complaint in a row about
that subject in the last month, inform your manager and record the issue on the
Systemic
Log.
Systemic issues can be local to a team or site, or be a risk nationally. However, w e won’t
know this if we don’t capture the evidence.
Case closure
If you have logged the complaint at the start under a category or categories but following
investigation it ended up more relevant to another or others, make sure you change it before
closing the complaint.
Official Correspondence
When handling Official Correspondence, you will work on customers’ issues that may have
not been dealt with before in the department. Wherever possible, you should obtain the
information to answer the enquiry through direct action via system interrogation and/or
conversations with Service Delivery colleagues.
At this point it may be possible to answer the enquiry without having to write a full response.
Answering customers’ enquiries by phone is more efficient and saves time by negating the
need to write a full written response. If the case is a POS, you will still need to write a
response as per Cabinet Office guidance.
On drafting a written response, as it is correspondence rather than a complaint , you do not
signpost the customer. There is no escalation route for correspondence. However, subject to
the type of enquiry, you will need to signpost them either back into operations, for which you
should agree the contact person’s details, or perhaps to other more appropriate areas such as
CAB, other government departments and so on.
When drafting a formal reply, make sure you adhere to DWP standards and where
appropriate use the pre-designed templates and
standard paragraphs/lines to take to help
build your reply.
Once complete, pass the case to the team leader. Once a final version is agreed, for POS
cases email all relevant documents to the appropriate Director for signing. For Treat Official
and MP to DG cases, sign and send the response.
POS Case – prepare for Director Signature MP DG – draft for own signature Treat Official – draft response or phone call