Online Dispute Resolution Policy

ONLINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION POLICY

Company: [COMPANY NAME]

Website or Service: [WEBSITE / SERVICE]

Effective Date: [DATE]

1. Purpose and Status

This Policy explains how [COMPANY NAME] receives, tracks, and attempts to resolve online complaints about [WEBSITE / SERVICE].

Participation in this workflow does not require either side to settle. This Policy does not create binding arbitration, waive court or agency access, shorten or extend a filing deadline, restrict available remedies, or replace a process required by applicable law, a payment provider, an insurer, a marketplace, or a regulator.

2. Matters Covered

Use this workflow for complaints concerning:

☐ Orders, delivery, returns, refunds, or cancellations

☐ Billing, subscription, or account administration

☐ Product or service performance

☐ Customer-support interactions

☐ Website access or technical issues

☐ Privacy or data-handling questions

☐ Advertising or other communications

☐ Other: [DESCRIBE]

3. Urgent or Separate Processes

Do not wait for this workflow when emergency help or another process is appropriate. The person handling a complaint should identify and preserve any separate route that may apply, including:

☐ Immediate safety or emergency assistance

☐ A bank, card-network, payment-provider, or marketplace process

☐ A product recall, warranty, insurance, or delivery claim

☐ A privacy, security, identity-theft, or account-compromise response

☐ A regulator, ombuds, licensing body, or law-enforcement report

☐ A court, tribunal, or other formal proceeding

☐ A deadline shown in a contract, notice, official form, or governing law

Nothing submitted through this workflow should be represented as satisfying a separate notice, filing, service, or deadline requirement unless qualified counsel confirms that result for the particular jurisdiction and matter.

4. Step One — Support Request

4.1 Contact Channels

4.2 Information Requested

The complainant may provide:

☐ Name and preferred contact method

☐ Order, invoice, account, or ticket number

☐ Relevant dates

☐ Description of the concern

☐ Requested outcome

☐ Relevant documents, screenshots, or correspondence

Do not request passwords, full payment-card numbers, government identifiers, medical information, or other sensitive data unless an approved and secure process specifically requires it.

4.3 Internal Intake Record

5. Step Two — Review and Response

The assigned owner should:

☐ Confirm receipt using the complainant's preferred contact method

☐ Preserve the original submission and attachments

☐ Identify the transaction, policy, and records involved

☐ Route privacy, security, safety, regulatory, or legal issues to the designated team

☐ Avoid promising an outcome before review is complete

☐ Record the facts considered and any missing information

☐ Provide a written response or progress update by the company's stated service target

Acknowledgment target: [NUMBER] [HOURS / BUSINESS DAYS]

Substantive-response target: [NUMBER] [BUSINESS DAYS]

These are service targets, not representations about any legal deadline.

Response Record

6. Step Three — Internal Escalation

If the complainant requests review or the assigned owner cannot resolve the matter, escalate it to [ROLE / TEAM].

The reviewer should be different from the initial decision-maker when practicable and should record:

☐ The issue being reconsidered

☐ The materials reviewed

☐ Any conflict, authority limit, or specialist referral

☐ The outcome and reasons communicated to the complainant

☐ Whether the complaint reveals a recurring product, accessibility, privacy, billing, or support problem

Escalation service target: [NUMBER] [BUSINESS DAYS]

7. Optional Voluntary Mediation

After internal review, the parties may discuss voluntary mediation if both wish to do so. No party is required by this Policy to mediate or accept a proposal.

Before mediation, the parties should separately agree in writing on:

☐ The mediator or service

☐ Remote or in-person format

☐ Scheduling and accessibility needs

☐ Fees and how they will be allocated

☐ Participants and authority to negotiate

☐ Document exchange

☐ Confidentiality, privilege, recording, and data-handling terms reviewed for the governing jurisdiction

☐ How any proposed resolution will be documented and approved

Important: This template does not supply a mediation confidentiality agreement or settlement agreement. Those terms require separate legal review.

8. No Arbitration or Waiver in This Policy

This Policy does not contain an agreement to arbitrate, class or representative-action waiver, jury waiver, forum-selection clause, choice-of-law clause, fee-shifting term, damages limitation, confidentiality mandate, or contractual limitations period.

If the Company wants any such term, it should use a separate agreement drafted and reviewed for the selected transaction, users, jurisdictions, method of assent, and current administrator rules.

9. Communications and Accessibility

☐ Use plain language and identify the case number in each communication

☐ State whether a message is an acknowledgment, request for information, progress update, proposal, or final internal response

☐ Offer [LANGUAGE / ACCESSIBILITY SUPPORT PROCESS]

☐ Do not retaliate against a person for raising a concern

☐ Do not describe silence or failure to complete this workflow as consent, waiver, or admission

10. Privacy and Records

Complaint records should be handled under the Company's approved privacy, security, retention, and legal-hold procedures.

Do not publish a fixed retention period here unless it has been reviewed against the records involved and the laws governing the Company.

11. Quality Review

The Company may review aggregated complaint data to identify recurring issues. Before using complaint data for analytics, training, public reporting, or automated decision-making, follow the Company's approved privacy and governance process.

12. Contacts

13. Publication Approval

☐ Operational owner approved: [NAME / DATE]

☐ Privacy and security review completed: [NAME / DATE]

☐ Accessibility review completed: [NAME / DATE]

☐ Qualified legal review completed for intended jurisdictions and incorporation method: [NAME / DATE]

☐ Website links and contact channels tested: [NAME / DATE]