Conduct and service
The right approach to complaints handlingComplaints-handling partners are frequently urged to keep an open mind when dealing with complaints.
However, this advice is often interpreted in a restricted way and taken to mean that it requires only that fault be admitted where it exists.
Complaints-handling partners must take a broader approach than that.Complainants present their concerns only in terms in which they perceive them to exist, when the reality can be that the concerns are attributable to some cause not apparent to them.
The Law Society practice rule 15 partner takes the complaint at face value and dismisses it as groundless; the unhappy client goes to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors, describing the solicitor as arrogant or dismissive or any of the many other adjectives used in this context.This type of problem faced X & Co when the firm received a complaint from Mrs U that it had delayed the progress of her personal injury claim.
She pointed to several intermittent periods when nothing had happened for several weeks, or months, at a time.Mr G, X & Co's client care partner examined the file.
While he noted that there were periods when nothing appeared to be happening, he also correctly concluded that these were not the firm's fault.
They reflected time spent waiting for medical experts' reports, court hearing dates and the like.
He then wrote to Mrs U, saying that he had concluded the claim had progressed as quickly as it could have been.This did nothing to appease Mrs U, who went to the OSS.
The caseworker examined the file and quickly spotted the problem, which was not one of delay, but of failing to tell Mrs U, whenever there was a hiatus, that there would be one and the reason why.
The firm had failed to keep Mrs U properly informed.Had Mr G really kept an open mind, he would have realised the true nature of the complaint.
Mrs U had only said that the progress of the case had been delayed because that was how she perceived it.
Had he been open-minded, he might have resolved the matter in-house with an explanation and an apology, and saved the time involved in dealing with the OSS - not to mention the compensation the firm had to pay.
X Every case before the compliance and supervision committee is decided on its individual facts.
These case studies are for illustration only and should not be treated as precedents.
No comments yet