Service Professional Code of Conduct

Who this applies to

This code applies to you from the moment you submit an application for any Trusted Rw certification, and continues to apply for as long as you hold a valid certificate. It applies to conduct in your professional life, not to your private affairs, except where private conduct directly affects the customers, colleagues or employer connected to your certification.

Treatment of customers

You undertake to:

• Treat every customer with courtesy and respect, regardless of who they are, where they come from, what they can spend, or how they communicate.
• Give customers accurate information about products, prices, timelines and what you can and cannot do for them.
• Never obtain a sale, a review or a resolution by misleading a customer or withholding information they need in order to decide.
• Handle complaints on their merits, without retaliation against the person who raised them.
• Protect any personal information a customer gives you, and use it only for the purpose they gave it to you for.

Honesty in your application and assessment

The value of the certificate to everyone who holds it depends on nobody being able to obtain one dishonestly. You undertake that:

• Every statement in your application is true and complete, including the experience, education and employment you claim.
• Every document you upload is genuine and relates to you.
• Any work you submit for assessment, including a case study or portfolio, is your own. Submitting another person's work is disqualifying.
• You will not attempt to obtain examination content in advance, sit an assessment on another person's behalf, or have another person sit one on yours.
• Referees and employers you name are real, are aware they may be contacted, and are not connected to you in a way you have concealed.

Treatment of colleagues and staff

Service quality is produced by teams, and how a team is treated shows up in how customers are treated. You undertake not to engage in harassment, discrimination, bullying or retaliation against colleagues, and not to direct others to breach this code on your behalf.

If you hold a certification at manager level, you additionally accept responsibility for the conditions you set for the people reporting to you, including the ethical treatment of both staff and customers within your area of responsibility.

Use of the credential

• State your certification accurately: the exact level awarded, and only while it remains valid.
• Do not imply that Trusted Rw endorses your employer, your products or your services because you personally hold a certificate.
• Do not alter a certificate, a certificate number, or any verification result.
• Stop presenting yourself as certified once a certificate has expired, been suspended or been withdrawn.

Anyone can independently check a certificate number using the public verification page.

Disclosure of misconduct

When you apply, you declare that you have no unresolved professional misconduct finding against you. "Unresolved" means a disciplinary or regulatory process that has found against you and whose sanction or appeal is still outstanding.

If such a finding arises after you are certified, you must tell us within 30 days at support@trusted.rw. Disclosing a finding does not automatically cost you your certificate. Concealing one is itself a breach of this code.

Breaches and consequences

Where we receive a credible report that this code has been breached, we will put the substance of it to you in writing and give you a fair opportunity to respond before any decision is taken.

Depending on what is found, the outcome may be:

• no further action;
• a written caution recorded against your certification;
• suspension of the certificate for a stated period;
• withdrawal of the certificate, and refusal of future applications.

You may appeal any decision under this section within 30 days by writing to support@trusted.rw. An appeal is considered by someone who was not involved in the original decision.