Sudbury looks to deal with chronic complainers tying up city resources

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Officials in Greater Sudbury are looking for ways to deal with a small number of chronic complainers that are taking up a large amount of city staff time.

Councillors will hear an outline of vexatious complaints policy at their meeting Oct. 10, aimed at preventing chronic complainers from compromising customer service standards.

Repeated, unreasonable complaints can have significant resource implications for the organization, which may compromise the city’s ability to deliver excellent customer service,” the report said.

“For this reason, many municipalities have adopted formal policies for dealing with unreasonable, frivolous or vexatious complaints. The goal of the policy is to provide better customer service by reducing the resources spent dealing with unreasonable requests for which a state of customer satisfaction is unattainable or unrealistic.”

The report said municipalities who have adopted a similar policy have “indicated positive impacts to staff morale, which indirectly improves customer service.”

If approved, the policy would only come into effect as a last resort when other attempts to deal with the resident have failed.

Examples of vexatious complaints in the proposed policy include:

Read the proposed policy here.