Customer Charter
Our Assurance To You
Our mission is to help you win export business and invest overseas. We aim to provide you with a service that meets the following standards:-
To Respond Promptly
Indicating Support
We will give you a Preliminary Response or a Premium Rate Hold letter as quickly as possible after receipt of your written request and, in consultation with you, we will do our best to meet any deadline you have. Where we are unable to do so, we will explain why, what we are doing to achieve a decision, and when an appropriate response might be available. Additionally, we will provide an on-line Premium Rate Calculator – http://www.ecgd.gov.uk/index/pc_home.htm - from which customers pursuing prospective transactions will be able in many cases to obtain approximate premium rates for initial costing purposes.
Contract/Loan Negotiation
During the process of negotiation of your case we will ascertain your requirements for a timely response and meet any deadlines we agree with you. In addition, a full response to any general communication will be given, where possible, within 10 working days.For the Export Insurance Policy (EXIP), Bond Insurance Policy (BIP) and Supplier Credit Financing (SCF) facility, where all information has been received, the underwriting decision has been taken, and all contract impact issues have been satisfactorily resolved, we will prepare and issue documentation within 10 working days.
General Correspondence
We will do our best to meet any deadline you have to meet your business needs. Where we are unable to do so we will explain why, what we are doing to achieve a decision and when an appropriate response might be available.Where possible we will respond fully to any general correspondence within 10 working days. All telephone calls will be answered promptly in business hours. In exceptional circumstances, where your contact or a colleague is not available, the call will be transferred to an answer phone/voicemail. If you are not happy with our response times on any particular case, please let us know. Our Complaints Procedures are set out below.
Payment to Suppliers
Our payment policy to suppliers is that all invoices should be paid on contractual due date or, where there is no contractual provision, within 30 days of receipt.
Claims
For standard Buyer Credits, provided that an appropriately documented claim is submitted in sufficient time, we will pay on the due date as provided under the terms of our cover. For Supplier Credit and non-standard Buyer Credit claims, we will examine claims and determine liability expeditiously and we will seek to ascertain liability within 10 working days of our being satisfied that all necessary documentation has been received by us and that this is acceptable to us in support of a valid claim. We will pay claims within 5 working days of our admitting liability under the terms of our cover.
Allocation of Payments and Recoveries
For payment of recoveries to customers, following receipt of monies by ECGD, we will pay customers within 40 calendar days once we are able to apportion accurately any monies due.
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To See You Promptly
If you wish to discuss a potential business opportunity with us, or how we can help you further, we will be pleased to welcome you at our offices. Please telephone our helpline, the appropriate Underwriter, Claims adviser, etc. for an appointment. Where appropriate we can also meet you at your offices.
To Provide You With Information On Our Services
We will regularly publish information on the latest developments at ECGD, and the cover position for all countries, as well as the appropriate Underwriter for your sector, fixed interest rates available, and other items of interest.We will also publish information on our website on all our products. We will continue to publish our Annual Review and Resource Accounts on our website and, on request, in printed form. All material published for the information of ECGD's customers and the general public will be available on the Internet the same day (http://www.ecgd.gov.uk). We will hold regular seminars to inform our customers about current developments. Customers will also have the opportunity to meet ECGD staff and make enquiries of them.
To Consult You Regularly About Our Service
In respect of each of your cases for which ECGD support is provided we will issue a questionnaire to you in order to seek your views on our performance. We will maintain a dialogue with you to ensure that we continue to meet your needs. We will regularly commission an independent survey of a sample of our customers, which will consider areas such as our cover availability, product range and service, and obtain those customers’ views as to how we can improve further.
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To Make Our Offices Accessible
If you have any disability and wish to have help in getting in to our offices, please let us know in advance so we can assist you. Alternatively, we can visit you if you prefer.
To Provide A Complaints Procedure
If you have a grievance about the support we are offering or the service we are providing, we have established a complaints procedure, which is set out below.
To Publicise Our Reports To You
We will publish:
Our aim is to provide you with a first class service and the purpose of this Charter is to set out the various service standards we aim to achieve, but it is not intended to create any legal relations.
What to do if something goes wrong
A guide to ECGD's suggestions and complaints procedure
Our mission is to help you win export business and invest overseas. We want to provide all our customers with the highest standards of service in everything we do. If things do go wrong we want to put them right as soon as we can. We have systems designed to do just that, and these are set out below.
Speak to the person handling your case
Usually you will find that if you have a problem it can be resolved quickly by the person dealing with your case – please give them a call, explain what the problem is and what you would like to be done. If you are in doubt about who the case official is please call our helpline on 020 7512 7887 and they will undertake to establish the appropriate contact.
If you are still not satisfied
If that person cannot solve the problem to your satisfaction, you may wish to contact the Head of Division responsible for the case, or our Chief Executive:
The Head of Division with responsibility for the case will seek to resolve your difficulties. We publish an organisation chart, which will help you identify the relevant Head of Division. This is available on our website or you may call our helpline on 020 7512 7887 for a copy.
Our Chief Executive, Patrick Crawford, is keen to ensure that we do all we can to help you. If you wish to discuss any difficulty please write to him at our Head Office or via e-mail at patrick.crawford@ecgd.gsi.gov.uk. Alternatively you can call him on 020 7512 7003.
We will deal promptly with your complaint and ensure that it is fully investigated. We intend to provide a swift and effective remedy when something has gone wrong and tell you what steps are being taken so that the same problem does not occur again. We will investigate and provide a full explanation within ten working days of receiving your complaint, and often much sooner than that. If we cannot give you a full reply within that timescale we will explain why we cannot do so, what we are doing and when you can expect a full reply.
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Going beyond ECGD
If you feel that your complaint has not been fully resolved you can write to:
- The Minister for Energy at:
Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
1-19 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0ET
- Your Member of Parliament at:
The House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
If you are still dissatisfied with the way your complaint has been handled, you can ask your MP to refer it to the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
- You can get more advice from the Ombudsman’s office at the following address:
Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
Telephone: 0845 015 4033
Fax: 020 7217 4000
E-Mail: phso.enquiries@ombudsman.org.uk
Monitoring
We will monitor all complaints as part of our effort to improve our service to you. Whilst all complaints will be dealt with on a confidential basis, we will publish externally what we are doing to bring about improvements as a result of any suggestions or complaints made.
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