In this episode of Auto Transmission, the podcast from Auto Repair Focus, we speak with Alex Barnes, an Ombudsman at The Motor Ombudsman, to find out more about his work, and the role the company plays in offering fair alternative dispute resolutions for consumers and businesses within the automotive industry.

No customer ever wants to be in a position to make a complaint, while no business wants to receive one. However, sometimes issues arise, and once all efforts between the two involved parties run out of steam, The Motor Ombudsman can help. They provide fair and impartial overviews of cases, to work towards a resolution.

Auto Transmission goes behind the scenes at The Motor Ombudsman to find out how they deal with cases. Barnes discusses his day-to-day role, and the qualifications that help him when adjudicating.

The episode also provides tips for businesses on how to avoid a complaint, and highlights the areas where the most complaints arise. Throughout, we explore the challenges faced by both consumers and businesses, while underscoring the critical nature of fairness and transparency in dispute resolution.

Find out how you can deal with customer complaints, and how The Motor Ombudsman can help, in Auto Transmission, from Auto Repair Focus.

Foreign.

Welcome to Auto Transmission, the podcast from Auto Repair Focus.

I'm Phil Currie, and in this special episode, we'll be finding out more about the Motor Ombudsman.

Now, no consumer ever wants to make a complaint and no business wants to receive them.

The Motor Ombudsman offers a fully impartial service to the automotive industry and to help any complaints or disputes be solved in a timely and fair manner.

You can find out more about the Motor Ombudsman by visiting their website at www.themotorombudsman.org.

and today I'm speaking with Alex Barnes, an ombudsman at the Motor Ombudsman, to find out more about his job and what the body can offer for both consumers and automotive businesses.

Alex, thanks very much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Phil.

Now, before we get into the discussion around the Motor Ombudsman, it's probably a good idea to set the scene.

So can you tell me a little bit more about the body and its alternative dispute resolution ADR service?

Yeah, absolutely.

So the Motor Ombudsman is a fully independent and impartial ADR provider specifically for the automotive sector.

And we're tasked with resolving disputes between consumers and businesses by operating a free of charge for consumers, ADR service and driving industry standards within the automotive sector.

And basically, the role of an ombudsman is effectively to operate a fully impartial dispute resolution service, so outside of court.

So if you have a dispute with a business that's accredited to our company, once you've exhausted their complaints procedure, you can then refer it free of charge to us and we will look at both sides, review evidence, and come to a legally binding decision on what the outcome of your complaint should be.

And the way we do that is we operate for what we call codes of practice.

And effectively, these cover you throughout the entirety of your consumer journey, from buying the car to having it serviced and repaired, to any extended warranties that you might have, or indeed the manufacturer's warranty.

And we basically blend a mix of consumer law and good industry practice into these set codes, and then we assess complaints based on those codes.

So it will be things like the business will ensure that the vehicle is satisfactory quality, and then we'll assess whether they have actually met the standard of those codes.

And the service and repair code generally applies to independent repair outlets, franchise dealers that complete service and repair work, and mobile mechanics.

So what does your role involve and what's the process when a complaint comes in?

So we do expect, and it's part of the ADR regulations that garages try their best to resolve a complaint before it gets referred to the Motor Ombudsman.

So they have that eight week period within the ADR regulations to address a consumer's complaint.

And then after that, or if they reach that deadlocked position, then they have the added benefit of being accredited.

They can then refer their complaint to the Motor Ombudsman and then we will take a look through our dispute resolution service and then my role specifically is to review the complaints.

So we have adjudicators who will make a first decision and both parties will submit their complaint and their defenses.

The adjudicator will make a decision, they will discuss with the parties who agrees, who disagrees, and then that will get referred to me, who is an ombudsman, and then I will look at the case again.

So it's a two stage process is what we call it.

And then I will review all that evidence and then make a final legally binding decision.

And once that's accepted by the consumer, that's legally binding, the consumer chooses not to accept that, they're free to pursue that, that complaint elsewhere at court.

Now, you've been with the Motor Ombudsman for a while now, so what was your journey to get there and, you know, how's, how's your career taken you on that?

I studied law at university, so I did a three year law course.

After that I went and completed a master's in legal practice and also a legal practice course.

And whilst I was trying to gain extra work experience to potentially go and get a training contract, I started working at a company called Consumer Dispute Resolution Ltd. And it was a similar thing.

It was an ADR provider, but not technically an ombudsman, because Ombsman is a very specific form of ADR or alternative dispute resolution.

And I did various amounts of different consumer law, from more general retail like sofas, to energy disputes and then finally consumer arbitration.

And then sort of, once I outgrew that role, I then moved over to TMO and I'm now an ombudsman there.

So I've been at TMO for about three and a half years.

It does sound like you said it's a different type of adl, alternative dispute resolution.

So it sounds like there's a specific skill set that you need to be an ombudsman for those listening, what are the vital areas of knowledge and skills required that you bring to your work every day?

So I'd probably say the most important skill is an attention to Detail, obviously, we're viewing lots of different types of evidence between long paragraphs of emails to very specific vehicle reports, and it's really being able to identify what the critical information is and then analyzing that correctly.

Other skills, I'd probably say is very important, is drafting.

So all of our decisions are done written via email.

So we'll draft the decision in our word processing and then send that out to both consumers and businesses.

So being able to effectively convey your ideas and your thinking and reasoning via, via text is obviously very important.

It's quite, quite a critical skill because it's a voluntary service.

You have to be able to persuade people of your ideas.

So definitely persuasive writing is something that we value very highly here and I do quite a lot of work with our adjudicators and other team members on how to write persuasively.

Now, an ombudsman is effectively the final stage of the Motor Ombudsman's dispute resolution process.

So what happens here and what, what journey has the case taken in order to get to you in the first place?

First off, the most critical point is that the consumer raises a complaint with the accredited business and gives them either eight weeks to resolve it or reaches what's called a position of deadlock.

So that's where one party says, well, I think this.

And the other party says, well, we disagree, we think this at that point.

So it's been eight weeks, or they reach a position of deadlock.

Then you can refer the complaint to the Motor Ombudsman.

At that point, our case administrators will refer the complaint.

They'll say, we've been contacted by this consumer.

Can you provide your response to their complaint?

And we've got a welcome pack that we issue to people which says, this is the sort of evidence that you may wish to supply.

We send a business response form which says you may want to respond to the complaint in this way.

And once both parties have collated their evidence and sent into us and we have what's called complete case file, then we will move that to adjudication.

And our regulator, the trading standards institute CTSI, they say that you should complete an adjudication within 90 days.

So that's our goal at that point.

Like I mentioned earlier, both the business and the consumer will respond to that decision, that adjudication, and they will say, we either accept it, we will agree to carry it out, or we disagree with the adjudication for these reasons.

The adjudication will then do some writing and say, well, I think that my decision is correct for these reasons, or my decision remains unchanged for these reasons.

Or they might indeed say, well, actually I think you provided some more evidence or you provided some persuasive arguments and I'm going to change my decision.

If the adjudicator cannot get the parties to agree, they can then refer the complaint to the final decision stage, which is my stage.

And like I mentioned, we will complete a whole other review of the case.

Part of being an ombudsman is that you operate a two stage process.

So it's a completely independent review of the decision.

So I'm not obliged to follow the adjudicator's decision.

I can depart from it for whatever reason that I see fit.

I will potentially go and request further evidence if I then there's something missing.

I will review the case as a whole, I will look at all the different complaint points, see if all the complaint points have been addressed, and at that point I will either issue a provisional decision if I'm changing materially from the adjudicator's decision, or I will proceed to a final decision and once the consumer accepts it will become legally binding on the business and they have to do it.

Or alternatively the consumer can reject it and that's the final stage of our process, but they're still allowed to go to court.

And then what happens if a consumer or a garage isn't happy with your final decision?

So if the consumer is not happy with it, they can simply choose to ignore it and go to court.

They're not allowed to go to another ADR provider, however, so they can then go to a different party and try and get that seen by another ADR provider, but they could go to court.

So it's not intending to be binding at court if the business isn't happy with it?

Well, unfortunately, they have agreed to be bound by my decision by signing up and becoming accredited.

And you know, there's lots of benefits to doing that.

You might think, well, why would anybody agree to that?

But it's a much more cost effective process than going to court.

I think the wait time for a small claims court claim is something like two to three years right now.

And obviously that comes with lots of legal costs, legal fees.

Lots of judges aren't actually sector specialists.

So by being exclusively automotive, I deal with cars and warranty products and industry practice day in, day out for the, for the motor industry.

So I have a much better grasp on the specific technicalities of the automotive industry.

I guess that experience helps and moves things forwards and I guess as well when it comes to making decisions, you know, fairness is clearly key as well.

So what are the core, the main principles that you follow to ensure each outcome is balanced and impartial?

Yeah, I mean, you've touched on a great point there.

Fairness is at the core of what we do, in my opinion.

It's, I've always had like quite a strong moral compass, I would say.

So I think it's, it's really about just having your own values and sticking to the codes of practice and then doing what you think is fair.

It's, it's quite easy to become jaded in this sort of industry, you know, dealing with complaints day in, day out.

But ultimately I'm quite motivated personally on being right, as it happens.

So I'm more interested in getting to what I think is the correct answer rather than trying to appeal to any authority or being consumer champion or anything like that.

It really is about resolving the dispute fairly and impartially and being correct rather than taking an easy option.

Now, there's plenty more to come in my discussion with Alex, but before we get there, I just want to remind you that the Moto Ombudsman is there to help solve disputes, whether you're a consumer or a business.

You can find out more about the services they offer.

And as a garage, sign up to their code to practice by visiting www.themotorombudsman.org and checking out their website.

Now let's get back to the conversation.

I guess we'd like to think that there are very few complaints and you wouldn't have a lot to do on a day to day basis, but I'm guessing that's, that's not the case.

And I'm guessing, you know, no two days are the same in your line of work.

So just take us through a typical day.

You know, what, what do you do on a, on a daily basis?

Probably most of my job is reviewing decisions, reviewing cases, reviewing reports and coming fair and impartial decisions.

I do quite a lot of work in terms of helping other adjudicators and other colleagues with their own casework.

So that's a bit more interesting.

I can sort of guide people and give them my experience, give them my knowledge to pass down in terms of a typical day for me.

Most days I would try and get out for a walk in the morning to get a bit of fresh air, a bit of sunlight.

I'm told that's good for you, even if you, if I don't want to do it in the mornings.

And then everybody tells Me, I'm a bit crazy for this, but I come home and I crack an energy drink and get to work.

I probably start off most days doing decision writing, maybe break into some drop in sessions that I run to, like I mentioned, help some of the other staff and then I'll polish off any admin work and the less intellectually taxing bits at the end of the day.

So that in mind, I mean, what are some of the most rewarding aspects of your role?

And I guess as well you've had some challenges that you've had to face as well at times.

Oh, certainly.

So I'd probably say that the most rewarding aspect is getting a really good outcome for someone when they come back and they give you really strong feedback.

That always feels good.

If you say, like, thank you so much for all your help and pursuing this, particularly if I really had to do quite a lot of work.

If it does feel good to get that sort of feedback, lots of the times some of those cases have been where I've been requesting evidence or I've done a lot of investigation and really got down to the root of the problem.

It feels good to get the feedback and say, well, actually you've done a good job there.

I think you've been really thorough.

I also think that where both parties agree, where you have a by nature adversarial process, you've got a dispute having both parties say, well, actually what I think you've done is fair or actually what I think you've done is correct.

Even if I.

It's not the outcome I wanted.

That's also very rewarding, particularly where you've sort of resolved that dispute and brought it back home in terms of challenges.

So it's quite a technical industry.

Obviously my speciality is in law, so it was a big jump getting into the motor ombudsman, learning all the, all the technical details and lots of that is piecemeal knowledge from doing lots of different cases over a period of years.

We do run quite a lot of mechanical training.

We've got a partner that we partner with for external mechanical training and that was definitely invaluable.

But I'd probably say that's the most difficult part of what we do.

It is quite an in depth industry, isn't it?

The automotive market is.

You don't quite realize that when you're sort of on the outside looking in.

But there's so much that you need to understand and imagine from your side of things as well.

There's a lot to sort of take on board and dig through to try and you know, to get a fair resolution.

Yeah, I think that where it gets even more complicated, if you've got an expert report that's obviously a very high quality piece of information that will tell you a lot about what's going on in a particular case.

And sometimes you get two expert reports that say completely different things and they appear to be sort of equally qualified.

So they'll say I've got 35 years experience, I'm a mechanical engineer, this is my part 35 compliant thing.

Which basically means it's admissible to court, it'd be court approved.

Evidence complies with their rules and you've got another one that says basically the same thing and it's one of them has to be wrong.

But how do you pick between them?

And that's obviously incredibly challenging.

As an organization the motor almost been working with both consumers and businesses and obviously you're taking an impartial and balanced approach.

How much contact or direct contact in that respect, I mean do you personally have with each of them?

So certainly some I try and keep it to written.

Written evidence definitely because then you have an exact record of everything that has happened.

And it's a lot harder to be emotive over email.

I think that can be tempting to call people and they can be quite emotive over the phone.

Obviously lots of these things are quite emotionally charged.

Sometimes it's unavoidable and you have to call people because they have a.

They struggle with email, they struggle with written communication and it is only fair that you accommodate them for those reasons.

Or indeed sometimes the thing you need is very small and you could say hello, just giving a call, could you resend this piece of evidence because it's not come through and they say yeah, okay, that's great, that's fine.

So it does depend on each case but certainly we do try and keep it to written information.

And I alluded earlier on, as an industry we don't want to think about complaints and we don't want to sort of think about many garages do a fantastic job every day but complaints are part of business.

So on that respect, how many cases does the Motor Ombudsman handle in an average year?

Oh, it's really been exploding.

These contacts generally represent either cases that are not in remit, they're for business that's not accredited to us or they're about an Existing complaint.

So it's obviously a crazy number.

Most of these relate to our vehicle sales code, which is our biggest area.

So new and used vehicle sales.

We're waiting to see if it continues for the rest of the year.

We think most of these increases due to things like the cost of living crisis.

Consumer awareness is driving a lot of it, so we're much more well known in the industry now, I guess, as well.

We're seeing the average age of a car in the uk, in the UK car park and getting older and older drivers are holding onto their vehicles for longer.

And with that in mind, it's likely that independent garages are going to start seeing more work come into them.

So that would, I would imagine, open themselves to more complaints, as you mentioned, with the.

The cost of living and being careful with the.

The money side of things on the consumer side.

So I imagine, therefore, it's good for garages to have a code of practice that they can adhere to and follow and make sure that they don't invite complaints, you know, unnecessarily in that respect.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

It's a.

It's very.

Something that we see quite a lot as well is that we are seeing that the average age of vehicles, you know, rise quite, quite dramatically.

And, you know, working on older cars comes with its risks in the.

You know, they break.

Sometimes they, they break for things that aren't necessarily the garage's fault.

And certainly by having an impartial organization that says, well, actually this is normal for cars of that age.

Actually, this is an expected consequence of those sorts of repairs and really seeing complaints off before they end up getting taken to court or legal proceedings are issued, you know, absolutely, that's a very strong benefit.

And what are the general causes of service and repair complaints bought by consumers to yourself?

So in terms of service and repair, that one is almost exclusively due to the standard of work.

So it's by far the biggest, the biggest complaint point.

Most of the points fall into the standard of work.

So it's basically effectively whether the repair or the diagnosis has been done with what's called reasonable care and skill.

Outside of that, it's lots to do with the booking in of a vehicle.

So things that were supposed to be mentioned, not mentioned, what work was supposed to be completed.

And like with all areas, there's a bit about complaints handling as well.

So I think that that falls about 8%, but by far the biggest is the standard of work.

So what are some of the.

The key pointers of how garages can lessen the chance of getting a complaint from a customer?

What do you business owners really need to know to make sure they can avoid going further with a complaint following.

The codes of practice?

The codes of practice will never do you wrong.

Lots of what the codes say is about explicitly stating things that might be ambiguous.

So if you say, well, we didn't say it did come with this thing, the code of practice would say, agree any costs up front.

So you're not just relying on something that, well, we didn't say that it's ambiguous.

If you agree these things, you explicitly state them.

There can be no ambiguity.

Things like providing a checklist, providing a signed document that says, tick, I have done this, or tick, this has been done.

Outside of that, any.

So good communication is also vital.

So being transparent and clear with customers about how you're going to price things, what you're going to give them in terms of courtesy, cars, goodwill, things like that.

And certainly resolving issues where you can, of course, where it's reasonable.

But lots of the times apologies are free.

You don't have to admit liability.

You can say without admission of liability, we're sorry, we're sorry this thing happened, we're sorry that you feel this way.

And that can honestly diffuse quite a lot of situations.

And then I'd probably add the final point is learning from your complaints as well.

This is a thing that I'm personally very interested in, is complaints are a form of feedback.

And you can, like I say, you can become jaded with complaints.

You can dismiss people and say, oh, it's just, it's just ratty consumers, it's just consumers.

Again, I can't believe I've got another one of these.

Or you can, and certainly those people do exist.

I would say there are serial complainers and things like that, but for the most part people are reasonable and if they feel they've been wrong, they might have a point somewhere along the line, might not necessarily agree with what they want or their whole complaint.

But if you take learnings from your complaints, so you file them in what areas people are complaining about and you give it an honest look about, well, how could we make this better?

How could we reduce these complaints even if we don't agree this is what people are unhappy with.

So is there anything that we can do?

You probably find that you end up giving a better service.

So it's learning from your complaints is really a big thing for me.

And do you think garages should be engaging with those complaints, as you said, Rather just sort of passing them off as an irate customer, but actually sort of speaking to that customer and then finding out, and as you said, using it as feedback to go into future proofing and building their business.

Because I guess, you know, feedback is incredibly important in today's society.

Oh, certainly.

I mean, complaints are.

People are much more aware of their rights, they're much more litigious these days.

And, you know, with the cost of living crisis, what we think is one of the drivers of this big increase in complaints and all the ombudsman across the board are seeing this, is that people can't let those small amounts of money slip anymore.

If it was pre Covid levels, they might see that, you know, okay, it's only £200, only £50, it's not worth the hassle.

But now people a lot more squeezed, they feel that it is worth the hassle to complain.

So they're much more willing to complain and engaging with people and engaging with them seriously and addressing their concerns.

The sooner you do that, the much more likely you are to retain them as a customer.

So we find that throughout our process, the longer it goes on, the less likely people are to accept one, what we say, or two, be satisfied with the business response and the less likely they are to return to that business.

Whereas maybe you have to pay out £200 for a service that you didn't think you promised or something like that, but the consumer will then probably come back to you.

Obviously that's a very hypothetical example, but you might find that a small investment then leads them to buy another car down the line, which is obviously a much more, much more beneficial benefit than sticking to your guns and saying, no, we didn't say that.

And you might be right.

But, you know, being able to address complaints accurately and quickly is really what gives a consumer a positive experience.

And those positive experiences are some of the best customer feedback you can possibly get.

I mean, everybody has had a situation where they've complained to someone because something's gone wrong and they've done a really good job.

And I bet you went and told your friends about it when you had such a positive customer service experience.

And I bet that Some of those friends then went and bought stuff from that company.

And likewise, if you've had a very negative customer service experience, I bet you moaned to your friends and I bet those friends were then wary about going to that business.

So it works both ways.

That's exactly true.

Reputation is everything in this industry, in the aftermarket in general.

You know, there's always these perceptions of workshops, and the fact is, especially independent garages now are really investing heavily in making sure that their business is professional and, you know, and moving away from the negative stereotypes.

And I guess, you know, with the Motor Ombudsman's service and repair code, you know, there's some core benefits to help push that reputation forward for independent garages.

So with that in mind, I mean, how can they find out more about that?

So we do a lot of work on our website, www.the motoromisman.org.

so there's lots of articles on there about case studies.

We've got an entire knowledge base about helping you digest consumer law.

Our accredited business can also come to our committees.

So we run engagement committees, we run training.

You might see me there.

Which is obviously the biggest benefit.

Outside of that, we have the accredited businesses have unlimited access to our business information line, so you can contact us for guidance.

We can't help you and give you advice about specific complaints because we're not a legal advice service, but we can give you information about consumer law and then you can then go and apply that to whatever situation you're facing.

So it's not direct advice, but it can be helpful.

You can also gain leads and exposure through our bespoke business finder, so consumers can go on there and search for businesses that are credited to us.

And we ran a survey and 84% of consumers said they would feel more comfortable using a garage or buying a vehicle from a garage that was accredited to the Motor Ombudsman.

So it's very, very strong public information that this garage is willing to do the right thing.

They follow an approved code and you can use our service and repair code logo, which is obviously great branding.

It shows we're at the forefront.

We're an industry leader in the motor industry and we also operate a Star Awards program.

So it's effectively a nomination of really good customer services for garages, and it comes with a reward as well, a prize.

So this nominations period is still open until the middle of October, and the national award is 2,000 pounds in vouchers and it will be presented at the Houses of Parliament.

So nice little day trip last Year, the winner of the trophy was AJ Fleet Care, just for some context, which is an automotive independent garage in Leeds.

So congratulations to them still from last year.

They're still getting plugged in.

Oh, yeah.

It's the benefit of awards, isn't it?

It's not just plug as well, but also it's the, you know, the kudos that you can sort of put together with that and I think we're seeing that actually more.

And I do champion, you know, awards as a great way for garages to.

It's not just about, obviously, you know, entering themselves as well, but it's also about actually looking at their business and seeing how good they are.

So I definitely encourage, you know, garage businesses to, to find out more about the Star Awards and see what they can do to, to enter.

And as you said, you know, it's the prizes there as well and the, the benefits are many.

So definitely would, would look at that.

Oh, absolutely.

We love hearing about good customer service and, you know, good things that garages have done.

It's, it, it's really, it takes, it takes away from all the negative experiences that we hear about.

We, we like to hear the positive things because when you're dealing with complaints, you do tend to only hear the negative things and it, like I say, it can make you a bit jaded and I certainly try not to be.

I try and give a big smile all the time, but it can get to you.

So hearing the positive things and the good things is a, Is a very welcome change for us and we do, look, we do love doing those things.

And before we wrap up, I do hear that away from the day job, you've got a pretty unique hobby, Thai kickboxing.

It's quite a contrast to be an ombudsman.

So tell me more about that.

I don't know.

It's a form of dispute resolution, isn't.

Is?

Yeah.

I keep saying to, keep saying to my boss that we need to start trial by combat and I can head up that to play department, but he's not so keen for it.

Different, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've been so.

I've always enjoyed martial arts.

I think I started kickboxing when I was about 10 and I've.

I've obviously carried that on till now.

I've.

I started very seriously.

I moved over to Thai boxing, I think, when I was about 20, which is, you know, very similar to kickboxing but probably, probably a bit more brutal.

So it's punches, kicks, elbows, knees and some trips.

And I've had six fights now, so I'm still undefeated, but we'll see if that.

If that continues, I'll probably have to retire pretty soon because I'm getting a bit too old.

It's a young man's game.

I'm pushing 30 now.

You know.

I would say just try and see if you can bring it into the workflow.

That's fantastic.

You know, just offer it there as a, as you said, dispute resolution if it goes too far.

But Alex, thanks so much for just taking us through your work, actually, and your view of the industry.

I think it's fascinating.

I think it's great for garages to know that, you know, they have that protection if they're signed up to the service and repair code and just what they can get from the Motor Ombudsman.

So thanks very much.

Thank you very much for having me.

And don't forget, the Motor Ombudsman is there to help whether you're a consumer or a business.

If you are running a garage or you're a mobile mechanic and want to find out more about the codes of practice, then you can find them on the Motor Ombudsman's website.

Simply visit themotorombudsman.org and if you've liked this episode, don't forget you can subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts to get notifications when a new edition of Auto Transmission drops.

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