Definitions

In this Complaints Policy, the following expressions have the following meanings:

“Business Day” means any day (other than Saturday or Sunday) on which ordinary banks are open for their full range of normal business in England;

“Complaint” means a complaint about our services, employees, subcontractors, or customer service;

“Complaints Policy” means this document;

“Complaints Procedure” means our internal complaints handling procedure which is followed when handling a Complaint;

“Complaint Reference” means a unique number assigned to your Complaint that will be used to track your Complaint;

“External Resolution” means referring your Complaint to an external body or organisation for resolution if you are not satisfied with the outcome.

Purpose of this Complaints Policy

• We welcome and encourage feedback of all kinds from our customers. If you have a Complaint about our services, employees, subcontractors or customer service, not only do we want to resolve it to your satisfaction, but we also want to learn from it 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:

  • To provide a clear and fair procedure for any customers who wish to make a Complaint about our services, subcontractors, or customer service;

  • To ensure that everyone working for or with us knows how to handle Complaints made by our customers;

  • To ensure that all Complaints are handled equally and in a fair and timely fashion;

  • To ensure that important information is gathered from Complaints and used in the future to avoid such a situation arising again.

What This Complaints Policy Covers

• This Complaints Policy applies to our provision of services, employees, subcontractors and customer service.

• For the purposes of this Complaints Policy, any reference to us, or Modern Architecture Workshop, also includes our employees and subcontractors.

• Complaints may relate to any of our activities and may include (but not be limited to):

  • The quality of customer service you have received from us;

  • The behaviour and/or professional competence of our subcontractors;

  • Delays, defects, poor workmanship or other problems associated with the provision of services;

  • The following are not considered to be Complaints and should therefore be addressed accordingly:

  • General questions about our services;

  • Matters concerning contractual or other legal disputes;

  • Formal requests for the disclosure of information, for example, under the Data Protection Act;

Making a Complaint

• All Complaints, whether they concern our services, employees, subcontractors or customer service, should be made in the following way: by email to info @ maw.design and addressed to Andy Bargery.

• When making a Complaint, you will be required to provide the following information in as much detail as is reasonably possible:

  • Your name, address, telephone number and email address

  • If you are making a Complaint on behalf of someone else, that person’s name and contact details as well as your own;

  • If you are making a Complaint about a particular project or transaction, the project name and or number

  • If you are making a Complaint about a particular subcontractor of ours, the name and position of that subcontractor

  • Further details of your Complaint including, as appropriate, all times, dates, events, and people involved;

  • Details of any documents or other evidence you wish to rely on in support of your Complaint;

  • Details of what you would like us to do to resolve your Complaint and to put things right. (Please note that whilst we will make every reasonable effort to accommodate such requests, we are not bound to take any action beyond that which we may be contractually or otherwise legally obliged to take.

How We Handle Your Complaint

• Following our Complaints Procedure, we aim to always resolve complaints to your satisfaction [without further recourse to External Resolution]. However, if you are not satisfied with your complaint's resolution, you may refer to External Resolution as detailed below.

• Upon receipt of your Complaint, Andy Bargery, will log the Complaint in our complaints log and will acknowledge receipt of it in writing within ten working days, giving you a Complaint Reference.

• When we acknowledge receipt of your Complaint, we will also inform you of who is to handle your Complaint. This may be the person to whom your original Complaint was directed (as above), or your Complaint may be delegated to an appropriate member of our team.

• If your Complaint relates to a specific employee or subcontractor, that person will be informed of your Complaint and given a fair and reasonable opportunity to respond. Any communication between you and the person in question should only occur through Andy Bargery. We respectfully ask that you do not contact them directly concerning the Complaint while we resolve it.

• If we require further information or evidence from you, we will contact you as quickly as possible to ask for it. We ask that you use reasonable efforts to supply any such information or evidence quickly to avoid delaying the complaints handling process. If you cannot 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.

• We aim to resolve Complaints within 30 business 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, and the reasons for it.

• At the conclusion of the complaints procedure, regardless of the outcome, we will provide you with full details of our investigation, conclusions from that investigation, and any action taken. Our decision at this stage is final, subject to your right to seek External Resolution of your Complaint.

• If you are not satisfied with the resolution of your Complaint, you may seek External Resolution of your Complaint by referring to the Royal Institute of British Architects, further details available here.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

• All Complaints and information relating thereto are treated with the utmost confidence. Such information will only be shared with those subcontractors who need to know 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 us.

• All personal information that we may collect (including, but not limited to, your name and address) will be collected, used and held per 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 our Complaints Procedure, please contact Andy Bargery by telephone at 01234 954 884 or by email at info @ maw.design

Policy and Responsibility Review

• Overall responsibility for this Complaints Policy and the implementation thereof lies with Andy Bargery.

• This Complaints Policy is regularly reviewed and was last updated on 22nd November 2024.

• This Complaints Policy was adopted on 29 July 2021