Information for making a complaint

This code of practice informs you about our products, services and customer-care policies. Our code of practice on complaint handling and dispute resolution has been approved by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UK communications industries for the purpose of section 52 of the Communications Act 2003. This Code of Practice is published on our website www.digital-communications.co.uk. Additional copies are available on request and free of charge to any business customer. It is also available in alternative formats (e.g. larger print).

Please contact our Customer Service Team From 9:00am until 5.30pm Monday - Friday

• By Phone: 01164 362 361
• By Email: Use our contact form
• By Letter: Digital Communications, The Old Rectory, Main St, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8DG

Website: www.digital-communications.co.uk

We are committed to giving you the highest quality of customer service. When we purchase our services from wholesale providers, we choose those providers carefully to ensure that you get a high-quality service. We make every reasonable effort to supply services that satisfy your requirements. We work to all relevant laws and regulations.

• Equipment and Maintenance Service
• Landline Telephones
• Landline Calls
• Line Rental
• ISDN - Digital Telephone Lines
• Broadband Access
• Internet / Email Security
• Web Services
• VoIP & IP Telephony Services
• Non-geographic Numbers
• Intelligent Call Routing
• Directory Enquiries
• Mobile Telephone and Data Services

For more details on any of our products and services, or to place an order immediately, please contact our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361.

We work to the principles in the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, which are set out on the website www.cap.org.uk.

When you subscribe to a service from, Digital Communications we will send you our Standard Terms and Conditions and ask you to sign a contract, if applicable. If you have any questions, please phone our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361. We may carry out a credit check as part of our assessment procedures. Where applicable, the minimum contract term for our services is 36 months. We aim to provide services within ten working days of your original request, subject to the availability and installation of any equipment and, where appropriate, lines to your premises. If we need to carry out a survey of your premises or lay additional cabling, or we experience a delay from our supplier, we will inform you of the revised timescales as soon as we can.

If you decide to cancel your lines & calls order or agreement before we have transferred your service from your existing supplier, you may do so without charge before or within the switchover period. For all other products and services, please refer to your terms and conditions for further details. If you wish to terminate your contract for your lines & calls services within the minimum term of 36 months, we will charge you a fee as set out in your contract. After the minimum term you can cancel any service giving 6 months notice. Equipment that is supplied with a lease agreement is subject to the relevant finance company's terms and conditions.

If you wish to terminate your maintenance contract you are required to provide 90 days written notice after the initial period and before the next anniversary of the agreement. Should this time elapse we may charge you, as set out in your contract. You can cancel orders or agreements in writing, by post, by fax or by e-mail.

Please call our Fault Service Team on 01164 362 361 if you experience a fault with any of our services. We aim to have this investigated and repaired within 2 working days for systems, lines and calls services. Broadband faults can take up to 40 working hours to clear, should the problem relate to the network. In all cases we will keep you updated with the progress on your fault report.

Our policy is to assess each claim on a case by case basis. We aim to investigate any claims and respond within 7 working days. Any refunds that are due will be credited to the next month's invoice.

Our pricing structure is available from our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361. We will write to you in advance if we change the pricing structure on your products and services.

We will bill you monthly in most circumstances unless alternative arrangements are made prior to the supply of services. We prefer payments to be made via direct debit. Payments are due 14 days after the bill is produced. This date will be listed on your bill. Customers paying by other methods will be charged an additional fee as per our terms and conditions, unless an alternative payment option has been agreed by us. If you wish to change your method of payment at any time, please call our Billing Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361.

We provide itemised bills as part of our service to you on request. If you have difficulty paying your bill, please contact us on 01164 362 361 and we will try to arrange a different method of payment. We will do all we can to help our small business customers to manage their bills and avoid disconnection.

Please call our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361 no later than 30 days before your move date. We will amend your account and billing requirements as necessary. We will endeavour to offer you the same telephone number to minimise disruption but please note that for geographic numbers this is not always possible.

Digital Communications recognises that keeping your existing telephone numbers may be important to you. If you move your business to us and wish to keep the number that you have with your old provider, we will arrange it if you ask us. We will work with you to ensure that the services are switched over at a convenient and appropriate time. For more information, please call our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361.

You are entitled to a Directory Enquiry listing (including an entry in The Phone Book) for both your fixed and mobile telephone numbers. If you do want your details included, please contact our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361.

We make every effort to ensure that our customers are happy with the level of service, and the products and service they receive from us. However, despite our best efforts, things can go wrong. We take customer complaints very seriously and aim to resolve them quickly and efficiently. If you have a complaint about any part of our service, please contact our Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361Web Meet . Our advisors will ask you about your complaint and seek to resolve the problem while you are on the line. During any discussions we will protect the privacy of the information that we hold on you. To do this we may have to ask you questions to confirm that we are speaking to the right person.

You may also send your complaint to us in writing: Digital Communications, The Old Rectory, Main St, Glenfield, Leicester, LE3 8DG.

We will try to resolve your complaint quickly and efficiently, and to keep you informed at all times. We normally aim to resolve complaints within 10 working days but, depending on the nature of the complaint, this is not always possible. However, If you are not happy with progress in resolving your complaint you can ask the person to whom you are speaking to escalate the matter to their manager, and ultimately to the Managing Director. If we cannot resolve the problem, we will write to you to say so.

If it has been more than 8 weeks from the date you first contacted us to complain or you have received a letter from us saying that your complaint has reached “deadlock”, then you may ask for help from CISAS.

The Communication and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS): 70 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1EU e-mail: info@cisas.org.uk Website: www.cisas.org.uk

CISAS is an independent organisation which is approved by Ofcom to provide an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service. Ofcom-approved ADR services sort out disputes between communications providers and their consumer and small business customers. Their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story. They look at the facts given to them before recommending any action that may be needed to put things right.

Alternatively, if at any time you are not satisfied with the progress of your complaint you can ask us to agree an early referral to ADR (i.e. that we issue a deadlock letter). However, we may decline to do so if we do believe we will shortly resolve your complaint and are taking active steps to do so.

We take the problem of nuisance calls and malicious communications very seriously. We tackle it by working closely with the police and others in the communications industry. If you have been a victim of this activity, please call the Customer Service Team on 01164 362 361 to report the incident and for information on how to deal with it.

We are committed to helping all our customers to communicate easily. We can arrange additional services on request, for customers who are older or who may have a disability. For example, copies of bills can be in large print, on computer disc (or in Braille) for customers who have difficulty reading their bill.

Copies of this Code are available in larger print and other formats on request.

Voice over Internet Protocol services (VoIP) services deliver phone calls over broadband connections rather than traditional phone networks. To use a VoIP service, you would normally use a broadband connection together with some special equipment. This equipment could be either a personal computer installed with relevant software, a traditional phone with an adaptor that plugs into the broadband connection, or a wireless device with suitable software installed on it or your VoIP enabled telephone system. Many VoIP services might 'look and feel' like traditional phone services but may not offer the features customers expect from their phone service, such as such as guaranteed access to 999 calls or power to a phone so that it will still work if there is a power cut in the home. We strongly recommend that you carefully consider whether a particular VoIP product meets your needs relating to contacting the emergency services. For more information on VOIP products, please contact our customer service team on 01164 362 361.

We comply fully with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.