Customer Complaints Charter

Customer Contact Service Standards

We want every journey with First Bus to be a positive experience. When things don’t go as expected, the information you share helps us to understand what happened and to improve our services. These Service Standards explain how we handle the issues you raise, how you can contact us, and what you can expect from us.

How we handle the issues you raise

We review every contact we receive and take a proportionate approach to investigating concerns.

• We investigate issues involving driver conduct, accessibility, safety, safeguarding, or any incident that may cause significant harm or risk.

• We take note of issues such as reliability, punctuality, and timetable concerns and monitor these through trend analysis. These contacts help us identify recurring themes and make targeted improvements across our network.

• We process refunds for First Bus products, through the same channel that you used to purchase your ticket. App purchases of First Bus tickets are handled through the First Bus app, and contactless payments are processed through a portal which is managed by our service supplier, Littlepay. You can access the portal here.

We will only provide you with a response when an issue requires a formal investigation. All other contacts are reviewed and used to improve our services, even if they do not receive an individual reply.

Contacting us

Our online contact forms are now the quickest and most efficient way to get in touch with requests for our team. Please visit the main Help and support page and review the list of forms to complete.

If your issue requires investigation, we will provide you with a case reference number within two working days and aim to respond in full within 7–14 working days, depending on complexity.

What you can expect from us When you contact us, we will:

• Review your enquiry and determine whether an investigation is required.

• Fully investigate all driver related and other serious incidents and provide you with a case reference number

• Use all other contacts to inform our trend and performance analysis.

• Treat you with courtesy, respect, and professionalism.

• Protect your personal information.

• Use customer insights and surveys to improve our services How you can help us You can support us by:

• Providing as much detail as possible about your experience.

• Providing location, route number, date and time of incident.

• If you have a complaint, making it promptly so that we can conduct a full investigation.  For instance our CCTV data are typically only held for 7 or 14 days.

• Keeping any tickets or receipts from your journey.

• Keeping your case reference number if your issue is being formally investigated.

• Treating our agents with courtesy.

• Understanding that we may not be able to share details of internal investigations, especially where safety or staff matters are involved.

• Providing you with details of external escalation processes should you remain unsatisfied with our response [note this will vary dependent on location of incident].