How do I handle a complaint from a reader?

Where: Trust & legal → Complaints

Open this page: admin.<your-site>/trust/grievances (replace <your-site> with your site address)

Before you start

• You need permission to manage grievances. Editors can only look.
• Your grievance officer page is live. If there are no complaints, the page tells you its address.

Steps

1. Open Trust & legal, then Complaints (the page is Grievances).
2. Filter by Status and Category. Tap one to open Complaint details.
3. Read The complaint. The chips show the acknowledgement time and the decision deadline.
4. To decide, choose Resolve and write the decision. Use a reply template to start. Tap Send decision. It is emailed to the complainant exactly as written.
5. To say no, choose Reject and add a Reason. The complainant gets it by email.
6. To pass it up, choose Escalate. The 15-day deadline keeps running.
7. Use Add note for your team.

Officer details. Tap Officer details to edit the contact shown on your public grievance page. Only the owner can change it.

Good to know

• Each complaint gets an automatic acknowledgement email.
• The page shows "Acknowledge within … h · decide within … days".
• If you corrected a story, add its number to Story number corrected or taken down, then Open the story to add the correction.
• Publish the monthly report from the Monthly report tab (draft).
• Opening a record is written to the activity log.

Common problems

• "This complaint is already decided. Reload to see its latest state."
• "The officer details are still loading. Try again in a moment."
• "Choose a team member." Pick the person in the list before you assign the complaint.
• "Write something here first." Write your decision. The person who complained gets it.
• "Add a short reason (at least … characters)." Write a longer decision.
• "Enter the story number (digits only), or leave it empty." Type only the story number, like 1234, or leave the box empty.
• "Enter the officer’s name." Type the name of your grievance officer.
• "Enter the officer’s designation, e.g. Grievance Officer." Type their job title.
• "Enter an email address like name@example.com." Check the officer's email for typos.
• "Enter the number with the country code, e.g. +919876543210." Start the phone number with + and the country code, with no spaces. You can also leave it empty.
• "Enter a whole number from … to …." Use a whole number in the range shown: 1 to 72 hours to acknowledge, 1 to 30 days to decide.

Questions

Related

• Privacy requests
• Activity log
• Breach log