Your right to make a complaint
We always try to do our best, but sometimes we don’t quite manage. If you are unhappy about any of our services, please do get in touch with us to let us know, and we will try to put it right.
Sometimes we may only be able to explain what led to the situation, and to apologise for it; sometimes we can fix a mistake, and we always want to improve our systems and processes to avoid making any similar mistakes in future.
We will treat each complaint seriously and confidentially.
We will deal with you honestly and earnestly.
We always try to learn from our mistakes.
Informal complaints
Maybe nothing went wrong as such, but you are just a bit frustrated with how things happened. Please let us know! A quick email to say that what happened was frustrating and you would like to see us improve how we handle that sort of thing might be exactly the feedback we need to improve the way we go about it in future.
We re also quite happy to receive feedback in person. If you don’t really want to spend time writing a message, but would be happier just saying in passing that you have some feedback for us about how something was handled, please speak to any of our staff or instructors.
Making a formal complaint
If something has gone very wrong, and you would like to make a formal complaint about it so that we address it as a matter of priority, we want to do what we can to fix what has gone wrong.
Please send us an email through our contact form, describing the situation and the problem it caused you. Please let us know why you felt that it was unacceptable and what you think could have been done better, or what you are hoping to achieve with sending the complaint. The more information you can give us, the better we can understand the situation and the better we can attempt a resolution.
Please note that we will typically treat verbal complaints as informal complaints or as general feedback. If you would like to make a formal complaint, please do send an email, so that we can deal with it properly.
When we receive a formal complaint
When we receive a formal complaint, we will respond by email to acknowledge that we have received it.
An appropriate member of staff within the Academy of Historical Arts will be tasked with investigating the situation, and (if at all possible) it will not be a person connected directly with the issue. This member of staff may discuss matters further with you, may consult with other members of staff, and at the end of their investigation, will propose a resolution. We will endeavour to reach this stage within one calendar month although more complex cases may take longer.
We will keep your complaint as confidential as we are able. Our staff members may need to discuss the complaint amongst ourselves to reach an understanding of how to solve the problem; if we ever need to reach out to colleagues in other organisations to see how they have solved similar problems then we will anonymise the issue.
Once a decision is reached about the resolution to the complaint, we will put it into effect as soon as feasibly possible.
Maintaining records
We will maintain written records of complaints and resolutions. These will be covered by our data protection policy.
Scope of this policy
This policy describes how we, the staff of Academy of Historical Arts Ltd, will deal with complaints about our company and members of staff.
We do not handle complaints about affiliated clubs. Any such complaints should be directed to the club(s) in question, where they should be dealt with according to each club’s own complaints policy.