I. GENERAL PROVISIONS
1. The Description of the Procedure for Personal Service and Examination of Applications and Complaints (hereinafter referred to as the Description) establishes the rules for personal service of MELP UAB (hereinafter referred to as the Company), the procedure for receiving, registering, examining and providing answers to personal applications and complaints.
2. The following shall also be examined in accordance with this Description:
2.1. the facts presented in the official notice of an employee of the Company, related to a possible violation of the rights of third parties or interests protected by law;
2.2. information provided in the mass media regarding the rights of persons or interests protected by law that may have been violated in the Company;
2.3. cases of possible violation of the rights and protected interests of individuals, if the possible violation is related to the Company or its activities, except for violations for which the legislation provides special procedures.
3. This Description has been prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Republic of Lithuania Law on Consumer Protection and other legal acts, taking into account the Company's efforts to resolve any claims of persons immediately and by agreement of the parties.
4. The provisions of this Description shall apply to the service of persons, examination of applications and complaints of persons to the extent that the relevant issues are not regulated by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and other legal acts adopted on the basis thereof and internal documents of the Company.
5. Definitions used in this Description:
5.1. Person shall mean a user of the Company's services or another natural person or legal entity who applies to the Company.
5.2. Response shall mean a written explanation provided by the Company regarding the examined application or complaint and the decision made.
5.3. Applicant shall mean a person who has submitted a written application or complaint to the Company.
5.4. Application shall mean a person's application to the Company, not related to the violation of a person's rights or legitimate interests – a request to issue a document, a copy, statement, extract confirming a certain legal fact; a request to submit the information available to the Company in accordance with the established procedure; a request to perform other actions specified in legal acts. The application of a person to the Company shall also be considered an application:
5.4.1. setting out a person’s preference, position on a particular issue;
5.4.2. notifying about the deficiencies of the activities of the Company and its employees, their abuse or illegal actions not related to the violation of the rights and legitimate interests of a particular person;
5.4.3. when proposals are made to improve something in the provision of the Company's services or in other areas, when attention is drawn to a certain situation and when it is proposed to improve or change something.
5.5. Personal Information shall mean information about a person's private life (information about a person's personal and family life, health, religion, racial and ethnic origin, political, religious, philosophical or other beliefs, criminal record, other information related to a person's honour and dignity, etc.).
5.6. Complaint shall mean a written application submitted to the Company by the Applicant stating which rights or legitimate interests of a person related to the services provided by the Company have been violated and requesting that the requirements of the Applicant be met.
6. The provisions of this Description of the Procedure shall not apply to:
6.1. requests for the conclusion, amendment or termination of service contracts, except in cases where a person notifies a violation of his or her rights or protected interests during the conclusion, amendment or termination of contracts;
6.2. application for the provision of the Company's services in accordance with the contract concluded by the Company;
6.3. ordinary notices and correspondence related to the performance of the contract concluded by the Company, except in cases when the person notifies about the violation of his or her rights or legitimate interests.
7. Employees of the Company, when servicing persons, examining applications and complaints of persons, must follow the principles of respect for human rights, justice, fairness and reasonableness, the rule of law, objectivity, proportionality, impartiality, efficiency and other principles enshrined in the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania and the Company's internal documents.
8. It shall be prohibited to refuse to serve persons, to examine applications or complaints on the grounds that there is no employee of the Company performing such functions. The Director of the Company and the heads of the Company's divisions shall ensure that during the holidays, business trips, illness, seminars and other cases of absence of the Company's employees, employees with the same powers shall be appointed.
9. Applications and complaints of persons shall be examined in writing. The Company's contact details for submitting applications and complaints (correspondence addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers) shall be published on the Company's website.
10. This Description shall be published on the Company's website. A copy of this Description shall be provided free of charge by e-mail at the request of any interested person.
II. PERSONAL SERVICE, SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS AND COMPLAINTS
11. Applications and complaints from persons may be submitted orally (by telephone), in writing (by post), by facsimile and by e-mail.
12. Oral applications and complaints shall be accepted only in cases when they can be examined and resolved immediately, without prejudice to the interests of the person applying, third parties and the Company. If an oral application or complaint cannot be examined and resolved immediately, the person shall be invited to present it and submit it to the Company in writing, explaining how the person may submit a written application or complaint.
13. The Company's employees must communicate politely, clearly and accurately with the persons served.
14. Private Information about persons shall be provided only to those persons who have the right to receive such information in accordance with the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania. Providing Private Information to other persons shall be prohibited.
15. The Company shall accept, register and examine written applications and complaints that meet the following requirements:
15.1. applications or complaints are written in an orderly and legible manner in the state (Lithuanian) language and/or English;
15.2. the document clearly sets out the substance of the application or complaint;
15.3. the submitted document is signed by the Applicant;
15.4. the name, surname or title and code of the legal entity is indicated in the document.
15.5. the document contains the contact details of the Applicant.
16. If a person's application or complaint is submitted to the Company by his or her representative, he or she shall submit to the Company a document confirming the representation.
17. Applications or complaints that comply with the requirements specified in Clauses 15-16 of this Description shall be registered by the Customer Service Manager or another employee of the Company appointed by the Head of the Company.
18. Applications and complaints according to which it is not possible to identify the Applicant, which are not signed by the Applicant or which do not contain any contact details of the Applicant, shall not be registered and shall not be examined.
19. Applications and complaints written in illegible form or in an incomprehensible manner shall be returned to the Applicant only in cases when due to these deficiencies the essence of the application or complaint cannot be understood. In such a case, the deficiencies shall be pointed out to the Applicant and it shall be requested to rectify them.
20. Applications or complaints of persons shall be answered in the state (Lithuanian) language and additionally in English, if the complaint was submitted in English.
21. Employees of the Company shall not have the right to disclose to unauthorized persons information about persons and their applications or complaints received in the performance of their work functions, except for the exceptions established by law. This information may be disclosed only to the Company's employees whose functions are related to the examination of a person's application or complaint
III. REFERRAL OF APPLICATIONS AND COMPLAINTS FOR EXAMINATION
22. Accepted and registered complaints shall be submitted for examination in accordance with the competence in accordance with the Company's internal documents.
23. Applications and complaints sent by post, facsimile or e-mail shall be registered in the Register of Received Documents in accordance with the procedure established by the Company. A receipt stamp shall be placed on the application or complaint, the date of receipt of the application or complaint and the registration number shall be recorded therein.
24. A person who has submitted an application or complaint shall, upon request, be provided with a stamped copy (date of receipt of the application or complaint and registration number) of his or her application or complaint.
25. Envelopes containing documents shall be kept and attached to applications or complaints.
26. The transfer of an application or complaint to the Company's employee examining it shall be noted in the Register of Received Documents.
27. It shall be prohibited to entrust the examination of complaints to the employees of the Company whose actions are being complained about.
IV. EXAMINATION OF APPLICATIONS AND COMPLAINTS FROM PERSONS
28. Applications and complaints of persons submitted to the Company shall be examined in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Lithuania and this Description. Applications and complaints of persons submitted by the Company shall be examined by the employees of the Company appointed by the Head of the Company or by the Head of the Company personally.
29. The Head of the Company shall have the right:
29.1. to get acquainted at any time with the progress of the application or complaint and with the material collected;
29.2. to make a decision to personally take over the examination of the application or complaint or to transfer the examination of the application or complaint to another employee of the Company;
30. An employee of the Company examining a person's application or complaint shall have the right to:
30.1. to ask the applicant to supplement or clarify the submitted application or complaint, to submit additional documents or explanations;
30.2. to get acquainted with the documents and information available to the Company related to the issue under examination;
30.3. to receive oral or written explanations from the Company's employee whose actions are being complained about;
30.4. to receive explanations from the Company's specialists if the solution of unresolved issues requires special knowledge in a certain field (e.g. technical, medical, legal, financial, etc.);
30.5. in coordination with the Head of the Company, to seek assistance from external specialists or consultants employed by the Company, if the employees of the Company do not have the special knowledge necessary for the resolution of the issues under examination.
31. The Head of the Company or an employee responsible for the examination of a person's application or complaint, having become acquainted with the content of the person's application or complaint and having established that the circumstances specified in the application or complaint may significantly affect the Company's activities, may initiate the formation of a Commission. The composition of the Commission shall be approved by the order of the Head of the Company. Minutes shall be taken of the meetings of the Commission.
32. A person's application or complaint must be examined and a response must be submitted to the Applicant no later than within 14 fourteen business days from the date of receipt of the application or complaint by the Company.
33. The term for examination of an application or complaint shall start to run from the day of receipt of the application or complaint by the Company. If the Company requests the Applicant to submit additional documents and/or data or to clarify the submitted application or complaint, the term for examination of the application or complaint shall start from the day when the Company receives additional documents and/or data or from the date of clarification of the application or complaint.
34. Repeat applications and complaints shall not be examined unless the newly submitted application or complaint indicates significant new circumstances or adds significant new evidence which has not been assessed in the previous examination of the application or complaint and which reasonably suggests that the Company's previous decision on the application or complaint may be incorrect or unfounded.
35. If it is established that the application or complaint is repeated and there are no grounds for re-examination specified in Clause 34 of this Description, a notice shall be sent to the Applicant within 5 (five) business days from the date of receipt of the repeated application or complaint that the response to the same question has already been provided (a copy of the previously sent response shall be attached).
36. The examination of an application or complaint shall be concluded by making a decision on some of the issues raised therein.
37. A response to the decision shall be submitted to the Applicant in accordance with the procedure established in Section V of this Description.
V. DECISIONS ON APPLICATIONS AND COMPLAINTS
38. After examining a person's application or complaint, the Company's employee responsible for the examination of such application or complaint shall prepare a draft response to the applicant and submit it to the Company's manager for signature together with the person's application or complaint and all examination material. The response and its arguments must be based on the material gathered during the examination of the application or complaint and on the provisions of the applicable legislation.
39. The response signed by the Head of the Company to the Applicant shall be registered in the “Register of Sent Documents” in accordance with the procedure established by the Company.
40. One copy of the response to the Applicant shall be sent to the Applicant, and the second copy of the response with the Applicant's application or complaint and the examination material shall be kept by the Company.
41. Decisions or conclusions of the Commission or the working group concerning the examined applications or complaints shall be formalised by an order of the Director of the Company, in writing or by another document confirming the decision.
42. Decisions on the examined applications, which set out the Applicant's provisions on a particular issue and which report deficiencies in the Company's activities, misconduct of the Company's employees, illegal actions not related to the violation of the interests and rights of a particular person, as well as decisions on applications containing proposals to change something in the provision of the Company's services or other areas of the Company's activities, etc., shall be formalised in writing by the Company, in which all questions raised by the Applicant shall be answered in a reasoned manner.
43. The Applicant must be notified of the examination of the application or complaint and the decision taken by registered letter or e-mail (if the Applicant's application or complaint is submitted electronically or the Applicant agrees to receive a response by e-mail). Private Information shall not be sent by e-mail. Other notices shall be sent to the Applicant during the examination of his or her application or complaint by e-mail or, if the Applicant agrees, orally (by telephone), by drafting a certificate of the officer examining the application or complaint and attaching it to the application or complaint material.
44. The notification of a rejected application or complaint shall state the reasons for the rejection of the application or complaint, based on the provisions of legal acts.
45. A natural person who has received a negative (unsatisfactory) response of the Company to his or her application or complaint or has not received any response from the Company shall have the right to apply to the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority, which is competent to investigate complaints about violation of consumer rights at the following address: Vilniaus st. 25, 01402 Vilnius, by e-mail at office tarnyba@vvtat.lt, or by fax (8 5) 279 1466.
46. All persons may apply to a court for the settlement of a dispute in accordance with the procedure established by the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania.
47. Applications and complaints of persons, material related to their examination, responses to applications and complaints of persons and letters referred to in Clause 42 of this Description of the Procedure shall be kept in the Company until the expiry of the limitation period for disputes concerning all the issues set forth in the applications and complaints of all persons, but not less than 3 (three) years from the date of submission of the final reponse.
VI. ASSESSMENT OF THE RESULTS OF COMPLAINTS
48. In order to identify deficiencies and potential risks (reputational, legal, operational, etc.), the Company shall collect and analyse information on similar complaints related to a particular service or product.
VII. SERVICE OF PERSONS BY TELEPHONE
49. An employee of the Company responsible for servicing persons by telephone (in his or her absence – a substitute employee of the Company) must:
49.1. find out what is the reason why the person is applying;
49.2. briefly and comprehensibly explain whether the Company is competent to examine the issue of concern to the person;
49.3. explain what documents need to be submitted to the Company in order for the Company to examine the issue due to which the person is applying to the Company;
49.4. if such information is or may be quickly ascertained by an employee of the Company, indicate to the person to which other institution the person should apply if the Company is not competent to resolve the issue of concern to the person;
50. An employee of the Company, when servicing persons applying to the Company by telephone, must comply with the following rules:
50.1. answer the call as soon as possible;
50.2. greet the Applicant, introduce oneself to the caller by stating own name and the name of the Company. At the request of the caller, an employee of the Company shall introduce himself or herself, indicating his or her surname.
50.3. listen to the person carefully, if necessary, ask for a further explanation of the application or clarification of the substance of the request;
50.4. answer the person's questions clearly and precisely or forward the call to the Company's employee responsible for the relevant area of the Company's activity related to the person's question;
50.5. try to answer the question immediately, if necessary to take the time to prepare a detailed answer – specify the time of the next contact by telephone or other means of communication;
50.6. speak calmly, say goodbye politely.
51. An employee of the Company shall create an image of the Company and form a favourable attitude and positive opinion about it, therefore he or she must ensure that no conflict situations arise during telephone conversations.
52. Records of telephone conversations of the Company's employees who, in accordance with their competence, provide telephone consultations to persons on the issues concerning the provision of services of the Company shall not be made.
53. In order to ensure the quality of personal service, the Company shall carry out an assessment of the quality of service of persons who have applied to the Company on issues related to its services at least once a year.
VIII. FINAL PROVISIONS
54. This Description shall be approved, amended and repealed by the order of the Head of the Company.
55. Non-compliance with the provisions of this Description shall be treated as a violation of labour discipline and shall render the Company's employees liable in accordance with the procedure established by the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania.
56. The Company shall review, evaluate and improve this Description taking into account the latest internal and external changes at least once every 3 (three) years.
