COMPLAINTS MANAGEMENT POLICY

Complaints management is the process of how organisations handle, manage, respond to and report customer complaints and feedback. Systems are put into place to track and trend the data that is captured by complaint management processes.
Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle have complaints management systems (CMS) in place with a view to utilising the data received to improve policies, procedures and training methods.

Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is a customer centric organisation that strives to provide excellent customer service to maintain its reputation as a transport provider of choice across Australia. Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is committed to providing a responsive process to facilitate the effective management of customer’s concerns and requirements.

Specifically, the purpose of this policy is to:

• Provide a complainant with access to an open and responsive complaints handling process
• Enhance the ability of Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle to resolve complaints in a consistent, systematic and responsive manner
• Enhance the ability of Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle to identify trends and eliminate causes of complaints and improve service outcomes
• Provide a customer focused approach to resolving complaints
• Provide a basis for continual improvement of the complaints handling process

The objective of this policy is to provide a Complaints Handling Framework to assist Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle and its affiliated, drivers, operators, networks and taxi licence owners to resolve customer complaints in an efficient, effective and professional manner. As a Quality Assured Business, Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle has utilised the Australian Standard AS/NZ ISO 10002:2006, Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints handling in organisations, to assist with the preparation of this policy.

The structure of the taxi industry differs from most other business sectors as it consists of distinctly separate businesses operating through an affiliation partnership to provide taxi services to the travelling public within multiple states, each with unique regulatory requirements.

Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle has a Booking Entity Authorisation (BEA) with Department of Transport and Main Roads (DTMR) for the Brisbane service contract area.

Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is also a registered Booking Service Provider (BSP) and Taxi Service Provider with Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland

This complaint handling policy is intended to address complaints made by complainants to Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle about the company’s services, products, employees, affiliated Taxi Drivers and affiliated Taxi Operators. AS ISO 10002:2006 defines complaint and complainant as:

Complaint:

An expression of dissatisfaction made to an organisation, related to its products, or the complaints handling process itself, where a response or resolution is explicitly or implicitly expected.

Complainant:

A person, organisation or representative, that makes a complaint.

Any person or organisation, including Affiliates (the complainant) who is dissatisfied with a product or service provided by the organisation and/or its Affiliates, for any reason, may contact Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle to make a complaint. Complaints may be provided orally, or in writing.

Some complaints may not include sufficient information, detail or contact information to enable a successful investigation and/or response to be completed by Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle. These complaints may consist of undefined, incomplete or unsubstantiated negative feedback only.

Whilst this feedback is utilised within the continual improvement environment of the organisation, feedback of this nature may not require a resolution or formal follow- up. As such this policy does not apply to feedback of this nature.

All complainants are entitled to a fair share of the organisations time and resources. Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle has the right to decide how to deal with a complaint, including how the investigation is conducted and by whom, the allocation of time and resources, the assistance the complainant needs to provide and how the complaint will be resolved. Complainants are expected to act reasonably.

The following are examples of unreasonable complainant conduct:

• Rude and aggressive conduct
• Obstinacy in communicating with complaints handling staff
• Exaggeration or dishonesty in explaining a complaint
• Unreasonable persistence with a complaint that has been investigated or closed, and
• Demands that are unrealistic or disproportionate
  Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is committed to treating all complainants fairly and with respect. We strive to show impartiality and professionalism when facing challenging behaviour and, we will not however tolerate conduct that is violent, threatening, aggressive or abusive. If complainants behave in such a manner, complaints handling staff may notify a complainant that their conduct is unreasonable. If the behaviour continues; access to the complaints handling process may be restricted or terminated.

Visibility: Information regarding the complaints process, including our Complaints Handling Policy are available on our website, in the driver handbook and internally.

Accessibility: Complaints may be made by phone, fax, email, via our website, by mail or in person. Detailed information is provided below.

Responsiveness: Acknowledgement of the receipt of a complaint occurs immediately. We endeavour to investigate and resolve urgent complaints within 2 business days and non-urgent or routine complaints within 5 business days. Due to operational constraints, from time to time, the investigation process for some complaints may exceed these timeframes, in these instances, complainants will be notified and provided with progress updates.

Objectivity: Each complaint is addressed in an equitable, objective and unbiased manner throughout the complaints handling process.

Charges: Access to our complaints handling process is free of charge.

Confidentiality: Personal information is actively protected from disclosure, information is only utilised where needed to address the complaint unless the complainant expressly consents to its disclosure. Similarly, personally identifiable information of Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle personnel and affiliates is also actively protected from disclosure in the course of an investigation and resolution of a complaint.

Customer-Focused Approach: Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is a customer focused organisation and we are open to feedback, including complaints. The entire organisation is committed to an efficient and fair resolution of complaints.

Accountability: All personnel and affiliates are accountable for their work performance and accept responsibility for effective complaints handling and reporting.

Continual Improvement: The complaints handling policy and process is Quality Assured and is formally reviewed annually in addition to ad hoc periodic reviews as a result of feedback about the complaints handling process.

2.0 COMPLAINTS HANDLING PROCESS

Complaints can be made by phone, email, mail:
Phone: +61 428118618

Email: [email protected]

Web: Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle (aw1770taxi.com)

Mail: Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle
PO Box 336
Agnes Water Qld 4677

All complaints – regardless of the submission method – will be lodged into our ServiceDesk system. This allows for accurate tracking and management of inbound and outbound enquiries. The ServiceDesk system will generate a reference number, which will be provided for use in future communications.

Acknowledgement of the receipt of a complaint will occur when it is entered into the ServiceDesk system. For emails this is automatic. For all other methods, it will happen once the complaint is logged in the system.

Sufficient information will need to be obtained to facilitate the investigation of a complaint, this is best done upon initial complaint submission, the forms provided on our website detail the information required. We may need to obtain further information or clarification from a complainant as required.

We aim to investigate and resolve urgent complaints within 2 business days and non-urgent or routine complaints within 5 business days. (Urgent complaints are defined as those that affect the safety and/or security of passengers, the public, drivers and/or employees. Non-urgent complaints are all other complaints.)

Due to operational constraints, from time to time, the investigation process for some complaints may exceed these timeframes, in these instances if required; complainants will be notified and provided with progress updates. An up- to-date status of a complaint will be provided to a complainant upon request. If a complainant requires assistance to complete a complaint submission, they may contact the Customer Liaison Officer.

Each complaint is assessed initially based on its severity, safety concerns, complexity and impact. Complaints handling resource allocation is prioritised on a daily basis to ensure the timely resolution of all complaints. Some elements (or all) of a complaint may be allocated to different personnel or a different department to conduct some (or all) of the investigation via ServiceDesk. To ensure complaints are resolved in a timely manner, different personnel or a different department are required to provide a response within 24 hours.

The level of investigation is allocated commensurate with the seriousness, frequency of occurrence and severity of the complaint. Complaint investigations are planned and follow specific systematic procedures. All investigations are approached impartially and the facts and contentions in support of a complaint are weighed objectively.

Complaints are conducted in private to ensure confidentiality. We actively protect the personal information gathered as part of an investigation.

Investigations are conducted within the following parameters:

• Investigative findings must be based upon evidence that is relevant and logically capable of supporting the finding – not on guesswork, assumptions, preconceptions or suspicion
• Where evidence is inconclusive, evenly balanced or scant, it may not be possible to resolve a disputed matter
• Rules of evidence that apply in court do not apply to administrative investigations. An investigator may use any reliable information obtained from any source
• Written records of verbal evidence will be kept
• Investigators may ask complainants for all reasonable assistance throughout the investigation
• To accord natural justice, complainants will be provided with an opportunity to comment on contrary information or claims prior to the dismissal of a complaint
  

Upon the completion of a complaint investigation, the complainant will be provided with a response outlining the findings of the investigation and the resolution of the complaint. Details regarding the action taken to resolve or rectify the issue that caused the complaint will be included within the response.

However, where a complaint deals with individual employees and/or affiliated persons, considerable care will be given to the release of information regarding the actions taken against the individual to improve their work performance.

This reticence to release private performance management information may result in the belief by a complainant that their complaint has not been investigated thoroughly, actioned appropriately or that the organisation is attempting to deliberately obscure the results of the investigation.

Whilst this inability to provide complete transparency is regrettable, we take our obligation to protect the right to privacy and protection of reputation of our employees and affiliates seriously. Personal information released has a high risk of further dissemination into the public realm and therefore creates an unacceptable risk to the employee or affiliate’s privacy, reputation and safety.

Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle is committed to both handling all complaints appropriately and the protection of personal information, the protection of an individual’s personal information is not utilised as an excuse to avoid dealing with a complaint.

If the complainant accepts the findings as presented in the complaint response or initiates no further contact with Agnes Water/Town Of 1770 Taxi & Shuttle within 21 days following the date of the complaint response, the complaint will be closed.

If the complainant is dissatisfied with the decision made within the complaint response, they may request an internal review of the decision. Requests for an internal review must be made within 21 days of the complaint response date. Requests for an Internal Review must be in writing and must specify what the complainant would like reviewed and the reason why they disagree with the investigator’s decision.

Internal reviews are conducted by an officer that has not previously been involved in the compliant. We endeavour to conduct internal reviews within 10 business days of receipt of the request. The result of the internal review will be provided to the complainant by way of an Internal Review Response.

If upon receipt of the internal review response, the complainant remains dissatisfied, they may choose to make a complaint to the Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland

Please visit their website for options on submitting a complaint – https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/About-us/Contact-us/#contactphone