If you wish to file a CLAIM, please fill out this form.
ACERTA will only accept and study complaints that are processed through the form available on our website, as this is the only way to ensure that the information is received by the right people.
Complaints transmitted orally, for example by telephone or in person, will not be considered official and therefore this procedure will not apply. However, the person receiving the complaint should encourage the complainant to formulate it in writing using the form.
ACERTA also makes available to the public and the organization's staff a complaints and suggestions form, which can be used to document these unofficial complaints, so that they can be known and addressed by senior management.
Note: Complaints formulated orally cannot be considered official because they do not provide evidence that they have actually been received and may compromise the recipients, especially when they are middle or low hierarchical level individuals.
When a complaint is received, it is automatically transferred to the General Management, which makes an initial review and determines the persons who should handle it (managers).
Complaint handlers will check that it falls within their area of competence and that they are able to deal with it impartially; if so, they will begin to study it according to the following method:
In the case of acceptance:
In the event of being assessed as a deviation (non-conformity, observation or comment), the provisions of the Non-Conformities and Corrective Actions Procedure shall be applied.
The process of dealing with accepted complaints will begin with an investigation of the possible causes, with the aim of finding out if there is any element of the quality system or of the entity's modes of action that may have influenced its appearance, and thus be able to take action to correct it, avoid its repetition and, in the case of interruption of certification, to restore it as quickly as possible.
Once the investigation has been completed, the complaint shall be recorded in the corresponding database. In this record, the complaint investigation section shall be completed, stating whether there has been a nonconformity and its most probable cause.
Exceptional cases of complaints are those coming from Public Administrations, ENAC, promoters of the evaluated standards or other organizations with certain authority over the schemes evaluated by ACERTA. In these cases it will not be necessary to register them as explained above, and they will be admitted regardless of the format in which they are presented and the general management will be immediately informed.
If the origin of the problem is located in ACERTA, the nonconformity is recorded and the process is followed as indicated in the Nonconformities and Corrective Actions quality procedure.
If the problem affects a specific evaluation file, ACERTA will study the situation and determine the actions to be taken depending on the seriousness and importance of the detected incidence, which may even lead to an extraordinary evaluation or the suspension or cancellation of the certificate.
Follow-up or maintenance of a certification will always take into account whether there have been complaints affecting that file.
