Privacy
How we use personal information
This page explains how Arrington Business Consultancy Ltd, trading as Arrington Consultancy, uses personal information: what you send us through this website, and the limited business contact details we use when we contact someone first.
What we collect
When you use a form or a tool on this website, we may collect:
- your name
- your email address
- your phone number, where you provide one
- your message, or your answers to a website tool such as the Arrington Product Guide, Owner Check or Market Ready Test
- details about your business you choose to share in answer to a tool's questions
- the best time to contact you, where you provide one
- how you heard about us, where you choose to answer that optional question on the contact form
Some tools, including the Arrington Product Guide, show you a result straight away without asking for any of the above. Name and email are only collected afterwards, and only if you choose to ask for a copy or to be contacted about it.
On the assessment tools you may see an optional "Continue with Google" button. It simply fills in your name and email using your Google account so you do not have to type them; it does not sign you in to anything, create an account, or give this website any other access to your Google account. Google processes that button under its own privacy policy. Typing your details in as normal works exactly the same.
How we use it
We use this information to respond to enquiries, arrange conversations, provide information or services you have requested, and understand whether Arrington Consultancy may be able to help.
We keep one contact record per person, matched on email address, so that if you use more than one tool or come back later we can see the whole conversation rather than treating each visit as a stranger. That record holds the details you gave us, when each submission happened, which tool or form it came from, and whether you filled the form in by typing or by using the Google button. It is used to reply to you and to keep our own record of who has been in touch. It is not sold and not shared for anyone else's marketing. If we contacted you first, we may also hold business contact details we found ourselves, and the section below explains what they are and where they came from.
The website also includes Google advertising measurement, and may include basic website analytics where configured. This helps us understand whether the website is working and which enquiries it produces.
Where configured, the website also uses Microsoft Clarity, which records how visitors move through the pages (scrolling, clicks and taps) and builds heatmaps from those recordings. The recordings are of the page, not of you: anything typed into a form is masked before it is recorded, and the recording holds no name or contact details. Microsoft processes this under its own privacy policy. We use it to see where pages are confusing or where people give up, so we can fix them.
Where configured, the website also carries a Meta (Facebook) pixel. It records that a browser visited a page and, if you send an enquiry, that an enquiry was sent; it does not receive your name, email or anything you type. Meta uses it under its own privacy policy to let us show adverts on Facebook and Instagram to people who have visited this website, and to measure them. We do not currently show adverts to people because they visited this website. The adverts we run on Facebook and Instagram are explained below.
If you arrive from a Microsoft (Bing) advert, the website also loads Microsoft Advertising's measurement tag. It records the visit and, if you send an enquiry, that an enquiry was sent; it does not receive your name, email or anything you type. You are asked once whether Microsoft may set a cookie for this. If you choose Allow it may, and if you choose Decline it does not. Visitors who did not come from a Microsoft advert, and have not chosen Allow before, send Microsoft nothing. Microsoft processes this under its own privacy policy. We use it to see whether those adverts lead to enquiries.
AI-assisted tools
A small number of tools on this website (currently the Commercial Gaps Review, and the Arrington Product Guide where you ask to be contacted) may use AI to help read free-text answers and prepare a summary. This is used to help Tom review an enquiry more quickly, or, for the Commercial Gaps Review, to help write the result you see. It is never used to decide whether you are offered a service, and it does not replace Tom looking at a genuine enquiry himself. The other assessment tools on this website (the Owner Dependency Quiz and the Market Ready Test) do not use AI at all: their results are worked out from fixed, pre-written rules.
Payment processing
Where you buy a fixed-price service directly through this website, payment is handled by Stripe. Card details are entered directly with Stripe and are never seen by or stored on this website. Stripe shares confirmation details with us, such as your email address and the payment status, so we can deliver what you have paid for.
If you choose to contact us via a "WhatsApp us" link, that conversation takes place on WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta and governed by WhatsApp's own privacy terms, not this website's.
If you reply to one of our Facebook or Instagram adverts
Some of our adverts on Facebook and Instagram open a short form inside the app, so you can ask us to get in touch without leaving it. This section explains what that form collects.
What we collect. Your name, email address and phone number, which dispatch system your firm uses, and roughly how many cars you run. Facebook or Instagram may fill some of these in from your account. You can change them before you send the form, and nothing reaches us until you press submit.
Why we collect it. To reply to you about a website for your firm, and to check before we talk whether your dispatch system can take bookings straight from a website.
Who else handles it. The form runs on Meta's systems. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, processes what you send under its own privacy policy and passes it to us. Meta may also check your phone number by sending you a text.
How long we keep it. The same as anything else you send us: for as long as we need it to reply, talk to you and keep ordinary business records. If you would like us to delete it, tell us and we will. The copy Meta holds is governed by Meta's own policy.
If we contacted you first
Sometimes we contact the owner or manager of a business we have not spoken to before, because something we have read about the business suggests we may be able to help. Each message is written for that one business, and Tom approves it before it is sent. This section explains what we hold about you if that is how we met.
What we hold. Your name and role, the business you work for, your work email address, the business's phone number where it publishes one, its website and location, a short note of why we thought we could help, and a record of when we contacted you and any reply.
Where it comes from. Only from places where the details have been published: the business's own website, Companies House, business directories, award and event listings, and Hunter, a service that finds published email addresses and shows the web page each one came from. We never guess an email address or build one from a pattern. We record where each detail came from, and if you ask, we will tell you exactly where we found yours.
Why we can use it. Data protection law (UK GDPR) still applies to work contact details, because a work email such as name@company.co.uk identifies a person. The basis we rely on is what the law calls legitimate interests: our interest in telling a business owner about work that may help their business, weighed against your own interests. We contact only the person whose role makes the message relevant to them, and we stop as soon as you ask.
The rules for marketing emails. Email is also covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which treat businesses differently depending on how they are set up. A limited company or a limited liability partnership can be sent a business email without agreeing to it first, as long as the sender says who they are and gives an address you can reply to and ask them to stop. A sole trader or an ordinary partnership is treated like a private individual, so they need to have agreed first. We check which applies before we send anything, and you can reply to any message we send to ask us to stop.
How long we keep it. We keep a record that we contacted you, so that we do not approach you again by mistake. If you would like us to delete your details, tell us and we will. If you reply and we start talking, your details are kept and used in the same way as for anyone who gets in touch through this website.
Telling us to stop. You can tell us to stop at any time, by replying to our message or by emailing tom@arringtonconsultancy.com, and you do not need to give a reason. We will not contact you again, and we record that you asked, so that we do not contact you by mistake later. You can also ask to see, correct or delete what we hold, as described below.
If we give you a demonstration login
If we invite you to try one of our demonstrations with a login of your own, we keep a record of when you sign in and what you do while you are in it: the pages you open, what you type into the demonstration, and how long you spend. We send ourselves a short summary of each visit so we can follow up with you. These records are deleted automatically, and if you would like yours deleted now, tell us and we will.
What we do not do
We do not sell personal information, whether you sent it to us or we found it ourselves.
How long we keep enquiry information
Enquiry information is normally kept for as long as needed to respond, manage the relationship and maintain ordinary business records. If it is no longer needed, it can be deleted.
Access, correction and deletion
You can ask to see, correct or delete personal information we hold about you, whether you sent it through this website or we found it ourselves. Email tom@arringtonconsultancy.com.
When we delete someone at their request, we remove the contact record and the enquiries, check submissions, quiz results and download requests it was built from, rather than simply hiding them from our own screens. One thing is deliberately kept: if you have paid us, the record of that payment stays, because a payment is an accounting record we are required to keep for a set period. We also keep a short note that the deletion happened and when, so we can answer you if you ask us later whether it was actioned. That note holds a shortened form of the email address, not the address itself.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Company details
Arrington Business Consultancy Ltd, trading as Arrington Consultancy. Registered in England and Wales. Company number 17122684.
This page is intentionally plain. It describes the website's current forms and measurement, and how we handle business introductions.