How to raise a formal complaint
A brief guide on raising a Formal Complaint
This is a brief guide to raising a formal complaint. Raising a formal or official complaint is not the same as raising a complaint. Raising a formal or official complaint means the complaint must be record in the organisations system and must go through a specific process or procedure.
Always make a formal or official complaint. Some companies and organisations will have a formal complaint process, some will call it an official complaint process.
For example, for local authority and social landlords, have complaints procedure that has a first stage, second stage and then housing ombudsman stage.
Now, Sara Ahmed {{The_Feminist_Killjoy_Handbook_and_a_Complainer's_Handbook}} has {{written}} and {{spoken}} a lot more eloquently than me about the way in which complaints procedures and policies are used as ways to protect the organisation, and in the process, frustrate you and wear you down, in the hope of wasting your time and energy so you give up.
Therefore, it is important that you bear this in mind when making a formal complaint. Because although it is part of a system that is oftentimes set up to in an unfair way to frustrate you. It is also a way to ensure there is a formal record of what you are complaining about, in your own words.
Pace Yourself
In cases where your complaint dismissed, rejected or not upheld. Wait until you have the time and headspace to respond, then respond with an escalation request. For example, “I am not happy with the way my complaint has been handled and want it to be escalated to stage two. You have not responded to the issues I raised.” (feel free to be more diplomatic).
It can be an interesting experience raising a formal complaint, because, the responses you receive give you an insight into how the organisation deals with the issues you have raised. However, this can be a draining, time consuming and emotional labourious process. If you are disabled, ask for reasonable adjustments to be put in place to give you more time to respond. For example, “Please put some reasonable adjustments in place to give me more time to process and respond to this.”.
Keep Records
Keep records, have as many records of events, days times, quotes recordings, police reports, police officer’s shoulder number, police officer’s collar number, names, reference numbers, team numbers, licence plate numbers photos, video recordings, audio recordings, for CCTV recordings you may need the police to look into it and request a copy of the CCTV. Keep records. I think the young people call them, “the receipts” (shout out to the podcast, although like Uncle Ruckus “no relation”).
Sample template for a formal complaint:
Subject: Formal Complaint
“Dear [add the name of the person, people or company you're complaining about],
By way of introduction, my name is [add your name].
I want to make a formal complaint about [add details of the issue your complaining about].
Provide details of what happened. Use as many facts about what happened as possible. Include the date, day, approximate time frame and details of anyone else who was there.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
[add your name]”