Hi all

As we began the process of rolling out the code last year I knew we would be facing the usual round of claims against the sector early in 2009. Regular as clockwork Consumer Direct are the first to release their 'complaint' statistics. CD claim to have received 16,176 complaints regarding servicing and repairs from independent garages, this represents a 6% increase on the 2007 figure of 15,253.

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/news/press_releases/national/2009/toptencomplaints2008

Whilst I continue to question how these figures are calculated, it is my firm belief that many of these calls are not complaints but enquiries from consumers that require some general assistance, we can not hide from the issue. This figure is being reported widely and questions will be asked about the independent sector. Rightly or wrongly there is a perception issue here and currently we have no position from which to defend ourselves.

We can start to defend our reputation via monitoring the operation of the Code and its subscribers. My current example being, from September to year end 2008 the Code Consumer Advice Line received 1,116 calls regarding service and repair, from this we escalated 32 calls to the Fast Track Service and resolved the consumers concern via a quick call to the subscribing garage - no real problems here just communication issues or misunderstandings, the important fact is we helped 32 consumers to resolve what they felt was an issue amicably, and in all cases the customer said they'd use the garage again.

Additionally we escalated 10 calls to full conciliation, this is where a clear breach of the Code had been identified that required formal redress via the services we have in place, in line with the Office of Fair Trading requirements. Nine out of the ten conciliation cases were resolved to the satisfaction of the consumer and subscribing garage, again making a positive out of a potential negative. This in my view means that we can report the following:

Consumer enquiries received 1,116
Fast Track assistance 32
Conciliation cases 10

0.9% of all calls to the service were qualified complaints

99.1% of calls to the service were from consumers requiring our advice or assistance

It is early days for the Code, but we aim to report actual figures that promote the correct mix of calls. A call isn't a complaint, unless we qualify it as such. It is important that we are helping people to understand the nature of their individual situation and then we reflect this - this to me is as important as reporting correctly complaints statistics as a means by which we can benchmark and improve.

If you want to be part of the industry initiative that has a long term goal that really is about the interests of the sector, you need to sign up and prove that you are one of the good guys, so that you can distance your operational from an evidence based position when the sector comes under attack from external advisory services, mystery shop exercises and government. Otherwise I'm afraid, rightly or wrongly, you're one of the garages within the sector that these claims are targeted at.

All the best