Complaint Service at Advanda

Complaints that reach Advanda are processed centrally and assigned to a responsible employee.

Immediately after receiving their complaint, the complainant receives an acknowledgement of the receipt of their complaint, stating that we will get back to them within 5 days.

The complaints are then immediately assigned internally to the relevant responsible employee.

Responsibility is arranged according to country and area of expertise. Inquiries are generally handled as follows.

Review by the responsible Advanda employee

The responsible employee examines the complaint according to the following pattern:

• Review, is the complaint justified? If yes, this is communicated to the complainant. If justified, the complaint is started with A.

• Have I had a similar complaint before? How was it solved and can I offer this solution to the complainant?

• Do I need to involve other persons, companies, partners to solve the problem. Do I need local language support. If yes: Call the person(s), company, partner, describe the problem and discuss a solution.

• Protocol of the conversation to the person(s) concerned by e-mail.

• If a solution is not found immediately, agreement on a time window of 5 working days in which a solution proposal is submitted to the person concerned, the company, the partner.

• What are the costs of solving the problem and who pays them? In the case of costs up to 300€, the case manager decides independently, above that he/she obtains the approval of the managing director.

• The solution is presented to the complainant. If the solution is rejected, i.e. if the complainant does not agree, the reasons are recorded and the process starts again at B. If the solution is approved, the agreement is sent to the complainant again in writing. The responsible employee initiates the necessary and agreed steps and, if a third party is involved in the solution, checks whether they are being adhered to.

• If the complainant again does not agree to the solution, the staff member will refer the case to Advanda's management.

• The management works out a solution with the complainant, if this is not successful, mediation is offered. The parties jointly determine the mediator. If the parties agree, the agreement is sent to the complainant again in writing. The responsible employee initiates the necessary and agreed steps and, if a third party is involved in the solution, verifies that they are being followed.

Complaint about a mediated employee

• If a customer complains about an employee referred by us, the employee will question exactly the cause of this complaint and what steps the customer has already taken to find a solution with the employee. The customer is asked what support he/she would like Advanda to provide in this case.

• At the customer's request, the employee is contacted by telephone in the local language. He is told the reason for the call, as well as the goal of the conversation, to present the employer's point of view to him and to gather his view in order to reconcile it.

• If the employee agrees with the complaint, he is asked what he wants to do to remedy it and what help he may need. Provided that the national language supervisor has the impression that a three-way conversation can lead to a solution, this is offered to both the employee and the employer. This conversation is conducted via video call.

• At the beginning of the video call, the goal of this conversation is explained and at the end of the video call, agreement is reached on how to proceed.