Ergo Group Ltd – Complaints Handling Policy

Ergo Group Ltd is committed to providing its customers with the best products and services possible. However, there may be occasions when things go wrong and our product or service falls short of our customer’s expectations.
This policy aims to bring together the requirements, guidance and best practice opportunities enabling us to fulfil our commitment to handling complaints promptly, fairly and transparently.
Overall responsibility for the policy lies with the Senior Management Team alongside the Directors.
This policy describes how we will deal with concerns raised by our customers and shall provide information about what our customers can expect when they lodge a complaint with Ergo Group Ltd.
Raising a concern under this policy does not affect our customers’ statutory rights.
Under this Complaints Handling Policy you can expect from us to:

• Operate an effective and compliant internal complaint handling procedure
• Ensure that all relevant staff are aware of the complaint handling procedures and act in accordance with them.
• Handle complaints fairly, consistently and promptly.
• Keep appropriate records.
• Identify, analyse and correct any recurring problems as well as deal with individual complaints.
• Co-operate with the Financial Ombudsman Service
• Report to the FCA in an accurate and timely manner.
• Tell customers in writing about the complaint procedure. Prior, during and after the sale of a product or service at any time on request or on receipt of a complaint (unless the complaint has been resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction by close of business on the next working day).
• Ensure complaints are investigated by a sufficiently competent person not directly involved in the matter that is the subject of the complaint (e.g. a complaint about the handling of a mis selling finance product should not be investigated by the person who sold the agreement), and who has the authority to settle complaints or ready access to someone with the necessary authority.
• If a 3rd party is solely responsible for the complaint or the reasons for the complaint, we will refer the complaint to them within 5 business days and write to the customer to make them aware of this.
• If a 3rd party is jointly responsible for the complaint with us, we will refer the complaint to them within 5 business days, write to the customer to make them aware of this, and then investigate and handle the complaint points relating to us as per our normal process.

Complaints may be made by email or by telephone. We ask our customers to provide their contact information and address in case a complaint cannot be resolved immediately, so that we may contact them for more information as needed, or with a resolution.
Complaints may also be lodged by writing to us at the following address:

Nick Marlow
Ergo Group Ltd
Longacres Garden Centre
London Road
Bagshot
GU19 5JB
Telephone: 01276 477461
Email: 
Ergo Group Ltd attempts to resolve each Complaint as soon as possible. The circumstances of a complaint may be such that we are able to resolve concerns by the close of the third business day following the day on which the complaint was received. If such a resolution occurs and our customer has indicated that they accept the response, the complaint will be considered closed and no further action will be taken by Ergo Group Ltd.

We will promptly send customers a ‘summary resolution communication’, which refers to the fact that they have made a complaint, informs them that we consider their complaint to have been resolved, advises that if the customer subsequently decide that they remain dissatisfied with the resolution of the complaint they may be able to refer their complaint to the FOS within six months of our response, and provide our customers with Ombudsman contact details.

If a complaint is not resolved within the third working day as described under the Complaints Receipt Stage above. Ergo Group Ltd aim to provide a written response to any complaint as soon as possible and in any event usually within eight weeks following receipt.

In instances where we are unable to provide a full and final response to the complaint within the first four weeks, we will aim to send a letter or email to the customer explaining why our investigations are incomplete. We will further continue to keep the complainant informed and write again no later than within eight weeks of receipt of the initial complaint.

The final response will consist of one of the following:

• Ergo Group Ltd will accept the complaint, and when appropriate, will offer redress or other remedial action;
• Ergo Group Ltd does not accept the complaint but in exceptional circumstances might offer redress or remedial action as a goodwill gesture;
• Ergo Group Ltd rejects the complaint and explains why the complaint has been rejected;

Where we uphold a complaint and offer a remedial action or redress we will process the remediation or redress promptly once our offer has been accepted.

Financial Ombudsman Service

If the complainant is not satisfied with our response we will advise if the complainant is entitled to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Any such referral must be completed within six months of the date of the final response.

It is important that our customers give us the opportunity of addressing any concerns before escalating a complaint to the Ombudsman Service.

Their details are below:

Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR

Telephone: 0800 023 4567 (calls are free from a land line)

Data Privacy Complaints

Complaints about the privacy of a person’s personal data should be submitted to us at 
Ergo Group Ltd
Longacres Garden Centre
London Road
Bagshot
GU19 5JB

In the unlikely event a complaint regarding the privacy of personal data remains unresolved after submission to us, customers may contact the Information Commissioners Office via their website www.ico.org.uk or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Our Privacy Policy provides further information on data we may hold about a person, how we use it and for how long we may store it.

Ergo Group Ltd will report to the FCA annually, detailing all relevant complaints. Reporting is carried out in line with the Firm’s financial year end.