Complaint Policy

Premier’s mission is to help people put their faith at the heart of daily life and to bring Christ to their communities. We seek to serve the church, listeners and all who access our content and support our ministry. Therefore, whenever a complaint is received, we carefully consider it in light of our mission. We take time to understand your perspective and aim to handle your concern with the utmost care and sensitivity.

This page outlines the steps we will take when we receive a complaint from you. It includes the following headings:

• Receipt and Delegation
• Initial Contact
• Complaint Response
• Appeal
• Documentation

Receipt and Delegation

Complaints can be received by any team in our organisation. You may choose to submit your concern by phone call, website submission, letter in the post, or by email.

Once a complaint is received, it is delegated to the appropriate team for investigation and response. It is important that the right contact at Premier handles your complaint because each team has specialist knowledge in their area and will also consider your concern in light of external regulation. For example, the data team must consider your complaint in light of the General Data Protection Regulations. This helps us maintain best-practice and also ensures you receive a thorough, satisfactory response.

Therefore, the person you originally contact about your concern may not be the person who follows up with you. You may find the person you contact collects your details and passes them on instead of trying to offer you an immediate response. This is all part of our care to ensure your complaint is well handled and responded to appropriately.

Where complaints involve multiple teams, such as broadcast and fundraising, we will assign a single team to investigate and respond to your complaint. The response team will liaise with other teams at Premier as necessary to provide you with a comprehensive single response from us.

 

Initial Contact

Once a complaint is received there are a number of steps that may be taken.

The Premier representative you contacted may be able to respond to your concern. Our customer service team is trained by other departments and may have suitable knowledge about your concern to respond. If this is not the case, they will pass your details to the appropriate team who will be in touch.

The delegated team may contact you to gather more information regarding your complaint. If appropriate, a Premier delegate may call you to discuss your concerns.

If your complaint is of a serious nature or requires an investigation, then it will be important to gather your complaint in writing. You may be emailed a link to complete an online submission form, sent a form to complete by post or asked to document your complaint by an email. For those who need disability support, we can call you and document your complaint by dictation and provide you a written copy by email or post.

The delegated team will also confirm the timeframe for which you can expect a reply. For all complaints, Premier aims to reply as soon as possible and certainly within 20 working days. If it is not possible to reply within this timeframe, you will be notified of the delay and new timeline.

 

Complaint Response

There are many factors that we consider when responding to your complaint. A few of these include:

• Your perspective and context – we want to truly listen and hear your concern.
• Our core mission to help Christians live out their faith every day – regardless of which particular church they are part of.
• Others feedback on the same topic, which may be contrary to your view.
• External regulations we must comply with, such as the Ofcom Broadcast Code, the CAP code (Committee of Advertising Practice), and the BCAP code (Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice).
• Practical considerations such as the need to fund our ministry, maintain confidentiality in staffing matters, and ensure our infrastructure is streamlined.

Depending on the nature of your complaint, our response may come to you by a number of channels:

• Under some circumstances we may call you to discuss your complaint. Sometimes a simple conversation can help bring greater understanding and appreciation.
• Other times it may be better to respond to you in writing. This is especially helpful for complex situations or when a complaint requires input from multiple teams. Our written response will be sent to you by email. If we do not have your email, or you do not use email, we will provide a reply by post.

 

Appeal

While we work hard to resolve complaints with the initial response, you may feel unsatisfied with the complaint response. If this is the case, you are welcome to reply to the Premier representative who sent you your complaint outcome and request an appeal.

The appeal process will start by seeking further information from yourself, such as why you found the complaint response unsatisfactory and what outcome you were hoping for.

Once this information is clarified, a senior manager is selected to review your complaint. We take care to ensure the senior manager selected is not the same person who provided you with the initial complaint response.

The senior manager will be sent your original complaint, any investigation that has been completed, our initial response and any further concerns you raised during the appeal application.

The senior manager will review your concerns and give you a final response within 20 working days. This response is the final stage in our complaint process and there is no other escalation possible beyond this.

It is our sincere hope by this stage we would have been able to resolve your concern.

 

Documentation

Premier does maintain records of complaints received, particularly if an investigation and written response was given. Delegated teams will also keep a record of all communication regarding your complaint including your appeal. This would include both information you sent us and we sent to you.

Documentation of complaints is just another way we help safeguard all parties and ensure accountability for how we serve the Christian community.