Service Excellence

The PTO is committed to providing a best practice dispute resolution service. We are professional, efficient and fair in our dealings with consumers and operators. Outlined below are some of the things you can expect from our service, including our Code of Conduct.

 Easy access

Contacting the PTO is simple.

• We'll provide practical assistance to help you lodge a complaint.
• We can take your complaint over the phone, there is no need to put it in writing;
• We can arrange for an interpreter if required;
• We'll meet with you in person, if it will assist in obtaining information about your complaint; and
• We'll give you information about what you need to provide to help us handle your complaint.

Prompt Responses

We consider every new enquiry or complaint (we call them cases) carefully and promptly. We respond to new cases within 3 working days and will respond to any telephone call, email or letter as soon as possible. If there is a delay in investigating your complaint or providing a response to you, we'll tell you why. During the course of an investigation, we'll keep you up to date at least every 14 days.

Appropriate referrals

If we can't deal with your complaint or a portion of it, we will tell you why, and refer you to an organisation which can deal with it.

Fair investigations

We investigate complaints objectively, fairly and as quickly as possible. In particular, we will:

• Provide you with a contact person, a Conciliator, in our office;
• Give you information about our investigation process;
• Regularly update you about the progress of the investigation;
• Provide you with an opportunity to comment on any proposed resolution or outcome; and
• Give you clear reasons for any decision we make.

Monitoring our performance

We monitor and publically report on our performance. This includes monitoring the timeliness of our service, the outcomes of reviews and complaints, and results of surveys. Our performance targets are:

• 60% of investigations resolved in 45 days
• 75% of investigations resolved in 60 days
• 95% of investigations resolved in 90 days.

Feedback about our services and reviewing PTO decisions

We view complaints and feedback as providing a valuable opportunity for us to review and improve our services.

We understand that sometimes people might not be happy with the service they've received from us. We have an internal complaint handling policy to deal with these complaints. All complaints are taken seriously and reviewed openly and genuinely. See our section on Complaints about the PTO.

Code of Conduct

To ensure we provide a best practice dispute resolution service, all staff are required to sign and comply with our Code of Conduct. The Code is a public statement of the standards we expect of ourselves. The Code helps to ensure that we act in a fair and accountable manner and build and retain the trust of those who use our services; consumers, PTO operators and the broader Victorian community.  Click here to view our code of conduct.