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Handling complaints

A good business tries to minimise customer complaints through excellent customer service, and address customer complaints about the business, or a product or service quickly and fairly.

At Fair Trading, we give consumers and businesses information about their rights and responsibilities, and provide a conciliation service to resolve disputes.

Dealing with customer complaints

There are Australian standards for complaint handling and customer service which may be useful guides. In developing an effective customer complaint policy, consider the following suggestions.

Examine how effectively your business currently handles complaints.
Involve your staff in developing a complaint handling system, and decide who will handle complaints.
Anticipate common complaints and work out standard solutions.
Write down your complaints handling procedure and prepare a standard complaint form.
Ensure all staff are trained in the procedure and have the skills to resolve complaints.
Display a sign saying your business welcomes genuine complaints about product quality or service.
Clearly advise your customers where and how they can report problems.
Ensure your customers can report problems to you at any time.
Keep a record of all problems and complaints.
Trial the system, and use customer and staff feedback to improve it over time.

Resolving complaints

When a customer has a genuine complaint, thank them for raising the matter with you. Treat them with genuine empathy, courtesy, patience, honesty and fairness.

Try to respond to the complaint quickly. Tell the customer how you will handle it and when to expect a response.

Speak to the customer in person. Do not rely on written complaints or records of conversations.

To show that you clearly understand their complaint:

familiarise yourself with any background information before you speak to them, check internal records, speak to staff and check how their version of events compares with the customer’s
listen carefully and do not jump to conclusions, lay blame or become defensive
ask questions to clarify the situation
summarise back to the customer your understanding of the problem.

Once you take the complaint details, tell the customer what will happen next.

If possible, nominate one staff member to manage the complaint until it is resolved. Ensure that this staff member has the authority to organise solutions that the customer will accept.

Adopt a solution-focused approach by actively involving the customer in this process. Ensure you take all promised action as promptly as possible.

When you find a solution, tell the customer and check they are happy with the resolution. Tell them how you will prevent the problem arising again.

Other ways to resolve a complaint

If you cannot successfully resolve a complaint yourself, you have other options.

Mediation

Mediation is a way to settle a dispute without taking legal action. It enables you and the other party to meet with two neutral mediators who will help you discuss the dispute.

Mediation saves time and money, and successfully helps people reach an agreement in 90 per cent of cases.

For more information on mediation, contact our Dispute Resolution Branch.

Small Claims Tribunal

In some circumstances, you may need to lodge a claim with the Small Claims Tribunal. Generally, the Tribunal is concerned with disputes between consumers and traders. For more information, visit the Small Claims Tribunal.

Fair Trading’s role

Investigating a complaint

If a consumer has made unsuccessful attempts to resolve a dispute with your business, they can lodge a written complaint with us.

We then investigate whether you have breached Fair Trading laws. If a complaint does not involve unlawful action, we attempt conciliation between your business and the consumer.

Under the law that governs the general marketplace, we cannot make official judgements like a court or judge. Nor can we force your business to pay a consumer. Only a court or tribunal can do this.

If a complaint appears to involve a breach of the law, we will investigate. To do this, we use a standard, impartial approach to investigating complaints that prioritises getting facts and considering evidence.

The process requires us to fully and accurately document the information we gather, and enables each party to present their evidence.

Spot checks

To ensure Queensland businesses comply with Fair Trading laws, our inspectors regularly visit business premises. Inspectors will produce a photo ID.

The inspector can enter an area if:

the occupier consents
a warrant authorises them to
it is a public place, and they enter when it is open to the public.

You must abide by all an inspector’s lawful requests, including:

giving your name and address
producing documents required under fair trading laws, and provide copies.

When dealing with an inspector, it is illegal to say anything that you know is false or misleading. Also ensure that any documents you provide do not contain false or misleading information.

If a business breaks the law

We can utilise several enforcement options if a business breaches Fair Trading laws.

Depending on the seriousness of the offence, the enforcement action may include:

warnings - telling the business in writing about their breach and requesting they immediately stop the illegal practice or face further action
infringement notices - fining a business for minor breaches of legislation by issuing a ticket, similar to a parking or traffic ticket
enforceable undertaking - having the business sign a formal agreement to change their business practices or take other action, such as corrective advertising, by a certain date or face further enforcement action. If they do not comply with the terms of an undertaking, we can obtain a court order or commence prosecution action
public naming - publicly naming a business via media release or website notification when we believe it has breached the law and consumers risk losing money
disciplinary action - taking this action before the Commercial and Consumer Tribunal when a business seriously breaches a law involving a licensed occupation, such as real estate agents and motor dealers, and possibly including fines or licence cancellation
prosecution - taking prosecution action through the courts when a business seriously breaches the law, with possible penalties including fines, compensation, disciplinary action or imprisonment
injunction - for a serious and ongoing breach, seeking an order from the Supreme Court to restrain the business from acting in the offending manner. If a business breaches the terms of injunctions, they are committing a criminal offence that carries lengthy prison terms
criminal code - taking prosecution action through the courts under the Criminal Code Act 1899 for offences such as stealing or misappropriation of trust monies or fraud, possibly resulting in imprisonment.

Queensland Ombudsman

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of a written complaint or investigation, you can have the complaint reviewed by the Queensland Ombudsman.

Last reviewed 19/08/2009