Gardeners Barking Complaints Procedure

Gardeners Barking is committed to providing reliable, considerate and professional gardening services. We recognise that, on occasion, you may feel that our service has not met your expectations. This Complaints Procedure explains how you can tell us about a concern, how we will handle it, and the timescales you can expect for a response.

Our Commitment to You

We aim to resolve all complaints fairly, promptly and transparently. Every complaint is an opportunity for us to improve our services and strengthen our relationship with our customers. You will always be treated with respect, and we ask that our team members are treated in the same way throughout the process.

What This Procedure Covers

This procedure applies to complaints relating to our gardening and grounds maintenance services, including but not limited to lawn care, hedge trimming, pruning, planting, garden tidy-ups and ongoing maintenance visits. It covers issues such as service quality, conduct of staff, missed appointments, and disagreements about work carried out or charges applied.

This document does not cover general enquiries, requests for quotations, or routine booking changes. Those will be handled through our standard customer service channels.

Raising an Informal Complaint

Where possible, we encourage you to raise any concerns informally in the first instance. Often, issues can be resolved quickly through a simple discussion.

If the gardener is on site when a concern arises, you may speak to them directly and explain the issue. They will do what they reasonably can to resolve the matter there and then, for example by adjusting the work or clarifying what has been agreed.

If the gardener is not present or the matter cannot be resolved on site, you may contact our office to explain your concern. When you do so, please provide your name, the property address, the date of the visit, and a clear description of the problem. We will attempt to respond promptly and agree a practical solution with you.

Making a Formal Complaint

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the informal stage, or if the issue is more serious, you may make a formal complaint. A formal complaint should clearly state that you wish it to be treated as a complaint and should include:

Your name and contact details
Your property address where the service was carried out
The date or dates of the service
A detailed description of what went wrong
What outcome or resolution you are seeking

Providing photographs or other evidence, where relevant, can help us to understand the situation and investigate thoroughly.

How We Handle Your Complaint

Once we receive your formal complaint, we will follow these steps.

1. Acknowledgement: We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within a reasonable time. In this acknowledgement we will confirm that we have received your complaint and outline the next steps in the process.

2. Investigation: Your complaint will be assigned to an appropriate member of our team, who was not directly responsible for the original work wherever possible. They will review the details, speak with the gardener or team involved, and, if necessary, arrange a visit to your property to inspect the work.

3. Response: Once the investigation is complete, we will provide you with a written response, setting out what we have found, whether the complaint has been upheld in full or in part, and what we propose to do to put things right. Where we are unable to uphold the complaint, we will explain our reasons clearly.

Timescales for Resolution

We aim to fully investigate and respond to your formal complaint within a reasonable period, depending on the complexity of the matter and the need, if any, to revisit the property. If we require more time, for example due to poor weather conditions affecting our ability to re-attend the garden, we will let you know and provide an updated timescale.

Possible Outcomes

Where your complaint is upheld, the outcome may include one or more of the following, depending on the circumstances:

Corrective work to your garden, such as redoing or adjusting specific tasks
A partial or full refund of charges for the affected service
An apology and explanation of the steps we have taken to prevent a recurrence
A review of our internal procedures or staff training

Where your complaint is not upheld, we will explain the reasons, for example if the work carried out matches the quotation and agreed specification, or if external factors beyond our control have affected the result.

If You Remain Dissatisfied

If, after receiving our formal response, you remain unhappy, you may ask for a review. Your request should explain why you believe the outcome is not fair or does not fully address your concern. A different member of our management team will review the original investigation, the evidence and our response. We will then write to you with the outcome of this review.

This review will normally be our final position on the complaint. At that point, we will confirm that our internal complaints process has been exhausted.

Your Responsibilities

To help us handle your complaint efficiently, we ask that you:

Raise any concerns as soon as reasonably possible after the service
Provide accurate and complete information, including dates and details of the work
Allow us reasonable access to the garden, when required, to inspect or remedy issues
Communicate with our team in a respectful and constructive manner

We may not be able to fully investigate very old complaints where records, seasonal conditions or natural plant growth have significantly changed the appearance of the garden.

Continuous Improvement

We regularly review complaints and feedback to identify patterns and areas where we can improve our gardening services, customer communication and staff training. Our goal is to ensure that, whether you own a small residential garden or a larger maintained space, you can rely on a consistently high standard of care and service from Gardeners Barking.

This Complaints Procedure is subject to periodic review and may be updated to reflect changes in our services or internal processes. The most recent version will always apply to any new complaint raised.