Unreasonable customer behaviour

The council does not normally limit the contact people have with it. We are committed to dealing with all complaints, requests for service, requests for information, help or guidance fairly and impartially. We aim to provide a high quality of service and we are keen to resolve any dispute and/or complaint as early as possible.

The level of information that we can provide about an ongoing enforcement investigation is necessarily limited due to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The council understands that customers sometimes feel frustrated by this. But we will not tolerate unreasonable behaviour.

Examples of unreasonable behaviour could include when a customer:

• Abuses or threatens staff or other people. This can include all mediums including social media.
• Pursues a personal grudge.
• Makes unfounded accusations.
• Makes multiple requests that are similar or pursue parallel disputes and/or complaint(s) on the same issue with a variety of officers, departments or services.
• Makes unnecessarily excessive demands on the time and resources of employees whilst a dispute and/or complaint is being investigated. This may include making excessive telephone contact or sending emails to numerous council employees or writing lengthy or complex letters every few days and expecting an immediate response.

Where this happens, we will take appropriate steps to limit the customer’s contact with the council. More information is available on the webpage for our unreasonable customer behaviour policy.

Please be advised that contacting the council multiple times is likely to cause delays in the investigating of complaints. We will acknowledge and record the contact, however, unless you are contacting the council to provide new information about the investigation, then a response to this contact will be deemed as low priority and at the Officer’s discretion.