Practical tips to help you answer complaints

As a follow up to our Improve your complaints process - statutory guidance we've put together some practical tips to help you answer complaints.

"Good communication is fundamental both to creating - and implementing - a good complaints policy. 

You can find more specific pointers under Principles 2 to 5 of our Statutory Guidance. It’s important to follow our guidance, because if a complaint reaches and is upheld by a Determination Committee, a complaints levy will be imposed. The factors taken into consideration that can lower the levy may include how well the practitioner has followed their own complaints handling policy, procedure and timescales, whether they demonstrated best practice as set out in the Statutory Guidance, when dealing with the complaint, and how well they engaged with the SLCC.

In a recent decision, the Law Society of Scotland confirmed that a solicitor’s duty to respond to a complaint applies irrespective of the perceived merits of a complaint.

We believe that three words can summarise the most effective ways to handle a complaint: 

• Engage
• Explore
• Respond

Explore the pages below to find out more about each one.