Supporter services
Our Aim
Our Departmental values
Our services - and our commitment to you
Contact us - comments, suggestions, complaints, compliments
What happens next? - Our Complaints procedure
If you remain dissatisfied
Thank you - your feedback will help us evaluate and improve on our services
Our global approach is reflected in the local services we offer to our supporters. Our Supporter Relations Department is dedicated to providing the highest standards of care to all of our supporters – both directly, and as a link with the more than 40 countries where our development activities are carried out. We have two small teams who respond directly to supporter queries, suggestions and complaints: our ‘New Supporters Team’ focuses on prospective and newer supporters who are just starting their relationship with Plan; our ‘Established Supporters Team’ responds to those who are already familiar with Plan.
We are actively involved with building strong reciprocal relationships with and between supporters, sponsored children and their communities. We aim to provide the highest standards of service to our supporters, to help achieve our commitment to children around the world.
Our Departmental values are shared by all those staff who both liaise directly with supporters or who work ‘behind the scenes’ to ensure that your experience of Plan is as good as we’d like it to be:
Integrity We are open and honest in our communications, sharing the realities and challenges of our work
Accountable We value the commitment made by our supporters and understand that every penny matters
Progressive We constantly evaluate our work, learning and passing on development knowledge and practices
Our Services – and our commitment to you
We pride ourselves on learning from our work and from those who support us. We monitor the complaints and feedback we receive carefully and constantly look for ways to incorporate your concerns and improve our service. We hope you will find us both professional and friendly, and that we can help to make your experience of Plan a very positive one.
We try our best to ensure that we offer a high quality service and achieve an acceptable balance between the needs and concerns of our UK office’s more than 120,000 supporters and those of the tens of thousands of communities we are all working to support worldwide. This entails being both responsive and efficient and prioritising carefully in, for example, emergency situations.
Despite our best endeavours, things sometimes do go wrong or we may not get the balance right, and when that happens we want to know about it. Where possible we will put things right, and also use the opportunity to learn from any mistakes.
We’ve developed a Supporter Charter to guide you as to what you can expect from us, and how you can ensure that any comment or complaint you have is heard. We appreciate the time and trouble supporters take to tell us their views.
We are committed to providing you with the highest quality of service and to listening to your views. We aim to address any queries or feedback you may have promptly and to learn from your experiences. Our Supporter Charter sets out how we will work to achieve this.
Contact us – comments, suggestions, complaints, compliments
If you do have a comment, suggestion, complaint or compliment that you would like to bring to our attention, there are several simple ways to do so:
By phone: our Supporter Relations teams are available from 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Just call +44 (0) 20 7482 9777 and our receptionist will be happy to put you through. We prefer to talk to you directly rather than using an automated answering service or voicemail, but out-of-hours you can leave a message on our answerphone. Calls may be monitored or recorded for training purposes.
By fax: you can reach us by fax on +44 (0) 20 7482 9778
By email: please forward your message to us at supporterrelations@plan-international.org.uk
By post: please write to us at:
Supporter Relations Department, Plan UK, 5-6 Underhill Street, London NW1 7HS, UK
- Please always quote your supporter reference number and, ideally, a daytime contact number, in communications
- If you do not have your reference number, please provide your full name and address and, again where possible, a daytime phone number
- Where writing in about an issue involving communications from/about your sponsored child, please also provide copies of any relevant items
What happens next? – our Complaints procedure
We take your concerns and feedback seriously and appreciate the effort that supporters make in contacting us. There are several stages to ensuring that we respond appropriately:
Stage 1
We will consider the issues you have raised carefully and aim to respond within 10 days. Where a matter is more complex, particularly where it may require a response from our colleagues overseas, we will contact you within 10 days of receipt to let you know of the actions that we are taking and will continue to update you on our progress.
Stage 2
If you are unhappy with our response, or with the progress of a complaint, you can ask for the matter to be passed to a manager within the department. Again, a full response or an acknowledgement will be made within 10 days of receipt.
Stage 3
If you are still concerned about the handling of a complaint, we would be happy to pass it on to a member of our Senior Management Team (Departmental Head or Chief Executive depending on availability) for a final response from Plan UK.
If you remain dissatisfied
Once your complaint has been through the third stage, if you have outstanding concerns about the matter raised or the way in which we have handled it, the case can be handed on to an external Ombudsperson for review. The Ombudsperson is a supporter independent to Plan who acts on a voluntary basis. They have a strong background in customer service, children’s services and adjudication. They will consider all the relevant information from you and from the charity, and recommend a course of action accordingly.
It is important that the procedures outlined above have been gone through before you contact the Ombudsperson, and they are likely to refer your complaint back to us initially if this has not been the case. If you do wish to refer your case to the Ombudsperson, please write, enclosing copies of all correspondence – and again, where possible, a contact number – to:
Plan Ombudperson – Ms Kala Nobbs
C/o Plan UK
5-6 Underhill Street
London NW1 7HS
On receipt of the Ombudsperson’s decision Plan’s Chief Executive will make a final response. Should the complainant remain dissatisfied with this, a final recourse would be to the Charity Commission – the regulator and registrar for charities in England and Wales.
Thank you - your feedback will help us to evaluate and improve on our services
We appreciate your support and welcome your feedback – and should you have any comments on the content of our Supporter Charter itself, please let our Supporter Relations Manager know via the contact details given above
Ombudsperson – link to copy of Kala’s profile/interview as given in Spring World Family
Charity Commission – Click here for the Charity Commission website
Complaint – any clear expression of dissatisfaction with our service which calls for a response
Comment – you may wish to comment on some aspect of our service but do not require, or prefer not to receive, a response; please make this clear when giving your comments
Suggestion – perhaps you feel there’s a way in which the service we offer could be improved?
Compliment – we’d love to hear from you if you’ve had a positive experience of our service or of a particular member of staff – or perhaps you’re a fan of some other aspect of Plan’s work? If you’re happy for us to share your views with other supporters, please mention this.
| 
