Overview
We are committed to providing high quality professional services in an ethical manner, and this includes maintaining our responsiveness to the needs and concerns of our clients.
This policy is designed to provide guidance on how we receive, and handle complaints made about our products or services. This policy explains how you can make a complaint, our measures for handling your complaint, and the steps you can take if you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, or the time that it takes for us to respond.
We acknowledge the importance of having an effective and efficient complaints handling process as part of a strong system of quality management, and we adopt a client-focused approach. While we acknowledge your right to make a complaint, we expect that you will treat our staff with respect when they are dealing with your complaint.
If your complaint relates to a Wealth Advisory service, please refer to Complaints Policy – Wealth Advisory.
What is a complaint?
A complaint is:
“An expression of dissatisfaction made to or about us; related to our products, services, staff or our handling of a complaint, where a response or resolution is explicitly or implicitly expected or legally required”.
This policy does not apply to complaints by way of negative or critical feedback, which although valuable, do not require resolution or follow-up.
Guiding Principles
We aim to handle complaints in a prompt, genuine, professional, and fair way.
How to make a complaint
If you would like to make a complaint about a particular engagement, director, or employee, you can direct the complaint to an appropriate member of the engagement team. If you are unsure who you should refer your complaint to or feel it is inappropriate to contact the engagement team, please go to our website at www.williambuck.com and click on the ‘Contact’ link in the top right corner of the website. Click on the blue ‘Contact us’ button and complete the form. Please identify in the ‘How can we help?’ section that it is a complaint under this policy and select the relevant office location.
When making your complaint please tell us:
- your name and contact details
- how you wish us to contact you (for example, by phone, email)
- what your complaint is about
- any supporting documentation
- details of the regular contact at William Buck; and
- what you are seeking to resolve your complaint.
How we will handle your information and protect your privacy
We will handle any personal information received as part of the complaint handling in accordance with our Privacy Policy and only for the purpose of dealing with the complaint.
If you need help to make a complaint
If you need help to make or manage your complaint, you can appoint someone (for example, a relative or friend) to represent you. Please note that we will need your authority to speak to any representative that you appoint.
How we will deal with your complaint
Acknowledgement
We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint in writing within 5 business days, or as soon as practicable thereafter.
When acknowledging your complaint, we will also have regard to any preferences you have communicated to us in relation to the way in which you wish for us to communicate with you.
Investigation of your complaint
We will try and resolve the complaint as quickly as possible. If we cannot resolve your complaint immediately, we will need some time to investigate your concerns.
We may request that you provide us with further information to assist with our investigation.
We will endeavour to resolve your complaint in 30 calendar days, but this may not be possible on all occasions. Where our review is likely to take longer, we will contact you to inform you why our response is taking longer and indicate when we expect to complete our review.
We will provide you with our written reasons for the outcome of your complaint.
Escalating your complaint
If you referred your complaint to the engagement team and are dissatisfied with the engagement team’s response, you can submit a request for a review via the Contact us button as explained in the ‘How to make a complaint’ section above. The matter will be reviewed by the General Manager in the relevant office.
Where your complaint pertains to the provision of tax agent services you may also choose to notify the Tax Practitioner’s Board on their website.
