The majority of individuals who contact us communicate with us in a polite and courteous manner. This policy is aimed at how we manage the relatively few individuals whose actions we consider unreasonable. We will manage behaviour that is aggressive or abusive, or which places unreasonable demands on our staff.
Aggressive/abusive behaviour is behaviour or language (whether verbal, i.e. face to face or by telephone, or written) that may cause staff to feel intimidated, threatened or abused. Examples may include:
Unreasonable demands and communication may include:
All staff have the authority to manage unreasonable behaviour. This may include informing you that we will log the recording of the phone call, or informing you that the phone call will be terminated. Incidents of unreasonable behaviour must be reported to the office Director at the earliest opportunity.
We have a zero-tolerance position on violence and threats against our staff and this behaviour will always be reported to the police if appropriate.
In all other cases, we may inform you that your behaviour is unreasonable and ask you to modify your behaviour. We will explain what action will be taken if the warning is ignored and, if you do not modify your behaviour, we will take steps to restrict communications with you. If we decide a restriction is appropriate, we will consider which of the options open to us best fits the circumstances. The level of restriction that we apply will be proportionate, taking into account the nature, extent and impact of your behaviour on our ability to do our work. This may include blocking emails/calls from you, withdrawal of quotation, terminating our retainer and your matter, limiting who within GloverPriest is able to speak to you etc.
Any decision to limit our contact with you or termination of your matter will be made at Director/Manager/Compliance level and will be communicated to you. If you object, you may ask for our decision to be reviewed by another person of Director/Manager/Compliance level.