Unacceptable Customer Behaviour Policy

The Progressive Building Society is committed to providing a quality service to all our Members.  In return we expect everyone who comes in contact with our staff to treat them with respect.

We have set out below what we consider to be unacceptable and/or abusive behaviour and the steps we may take to deal with such behaviour.  It applies to everyone who accesses our services to help us protect our staff from abuse and harm.

Members can expect that our staff will always:

• provide a fair, open, proportionate and accessible service;
• listen and understand;
• treat everyone who contacts us with respect, empathy and dignity;
• behave in line with the Society’s Code of Conduct.

We expect Members accessing our services to:

• be courteous;
• engage with us in a way that does not hamper our ability to carry out our work effectively and efficiently for the benefit of all.

Unacceptable behaviour means acting in a way that is unreasonable, regardless of the level of someone’s stress, frustration or anger.  It may involve acts, words or physical gestures that could cause another person distress or discomfort. For example:

Aggressive, abusive or offensive behaviour

Examples include:

• insulting or degrading language, including inappropriate banter, innuendo, or malicious allegations;
• any form of physical violence or threats of physical violence;
• derogatory racist, sexist, ageist, or homo/transphobic remarks;
• comments relating to disability, perceived gender, religion, belief, or any other personal characteristic.
• Stalking or other forms of harassment
• Publishing unacceptable information on social media, websites, newspapers, etc.

Unacceptable demands on services

Examples include:

• Demanding responses within an unreasonable timescale
• Insisting on seeing or speaking to a particular member of staff
• Sending the same or similar requests to several members of staff
• Refusing to end a telephone call, and/or demanding to speak to someone who is either not available or not the appropriate person (e.g. the Chief Executive)
• Requiring responses to correspondence where the content is malicious

Unacceptable persistent contact

Examples include:

• Persistent refusal to accept a decision that has been made in relation to their complaint
• Persistent refusal to accept explanations relating to what the Society can or cannot do
• Persistent refusal to follow the proper procedures explained to them in order to pursue their issue/concern
• Making an excessive number of telephone calls or visits to a Branch(es)
• Sending an excessive number of emails, faxes or letters
• Continuing to contact us on the same issue(s) without presenting any new information

How we respond to incidents of unacceptable behaviour

We do not expect our staff to tolerate unacceptable behaviour when communicating with our Members.  When this happens, members of staff have the right to: 

• on the telephone/Teams:
  • place caller(s) on hold;
  • end the call
• by email or letter:
  • not reply to an abusive email or letter.
• in person in a branch office:
  • refer the query to an appropriate senior team member;
  • the appropriate senior team member can ask a Member to leave the branch or Head office.
  • (if the behaviour becomes violent), call the PSNI.

Before taking such action, we will always warn Members that they are behaving in an unacceptable way to give them the chance to change their behaviour.  However, a warning will not be given in extreme cases to protect our staff, for example, when a physical threat is made.

Ending a Member’s relationship with the Society

If a Member continues to behave unacceptably, Senior Management can end the Member’s relationship with the Society.  If we decide to do this, we will:

• (for all accounts other than fixed term accounts) - write to the Member giving at least 30 days’ notice of termination, or immediately if the Member is acting in a threatening or abusive manner;
• (for all fixed term accounts) - write to the Member giving notice of termination on the day of the fixed term account expiry;
• we will explain why we consider their behaviour unacceptable;
• what action we are taking, i.e. closing all savings accounts the Member holds with the Society; and
• if there is a time limit on the action (e.g. 30 days, or end of account fixed term)

Where circumstances are serious enough, we may take legal action to prevent further contact/unacceptable behaviour.