Where To Direct Your Focus When Working With Vulnerability

27 April 2023

When working on addressing the needs of customers in 'vulnerable circumstances' or 'vulnerability', here at RBL we think it's important to focus on the second part of that word - "ability". We guide our clients to ask or challenge themselves the question "am I providing the customer in a vulnerable circumstance with the appropriate support or reasonable adjustments, that they have the 'ability' to participate and engage?"  If the answer is no, then it’s time to look again at what could change within internal policies, processes or practices that could change that outcome for your customers. 

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Our Eight-Step Approach to Setting up a Voice of the Customer (VoC) Programme

06 March 2023

In last week’s blog we explored the benefits of having a Voice of the Customer (VoC) programme. One of our favourite examples of a brand listening to and acting upon customer feedback is one from online florist Bloom & Wild (B&W). 

B&W noted that Mother’s Day of their email marketing campaigns was triggering higher than usual unsubscribes. They worked to understand what was behind this and discovered that campaigns like Mother’s Day and Wedding Anniversaries can be really sensitive times for customers who have lost a mother or wife. Customers reported that receiving emails about these sensitive times were upsetting, although customers were happy to receive emails at other times of the year and yet the only way to stop receiving them was to unsubscribe. 

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What is Voice of the Customer (VoC) all about? And should a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business have a VoC Programme?

27 February 2023

A Voice of the Customer (VoC) programme is a method used by businesses and charitable organisations to gather and analyse feedback from their customers. The aim of a VoC programme is to understand the needs, preferences, and opinions of customers in order to improve the overall customer experience. By collecting customer feedback, companies can understand what they’re doing well as well as identify areas for improvement. The insight gathered can help organisations to develop new products and services based on gaps in the market identified by understanding customer needs and create stronger relationships with their customers. A VoC programme helps both the organisation and the customer – as customers know that they’re being listened to. 

Voice of the Customer (VoC) programmes are becoming increasingly popular in the world of direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses. These programmes allow companies to listen to and understand the needs and preferences of their customers, which can provide valuable insights for improving business operations and driving growth. If you’re thinking of setting up a VoC, it’s worth understanding both the benefits you’ll gain and effort you’ll be required to put in to set up the programme and to maintain it. In this blog we’ll look at the benefits. Next week we’ll tackle how to set up a VoC. 

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The Consumer Duty From The Financial Conduct Authority – Will It Make Any Difference In Ensuring That Customers Are Treated Fairly?

15 February 2023

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its new Consumer Duty in July 2022 and since then there’s been a steady stream of content generated on the subject, including from the FCA (see below), but the real question is: will it make any difference to end customers of firms regulated by the FCA when the requirements kick in from July 2023? 

The FCA (formerly Financial Services Authority – FSA) first published guidance on Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) almost 20 years ago and continued to update that guidance on a regular basis. The requirements and recommendations were updated before the FCA went out to consultation on a new Consumer Duty. The finalised guidance on the Consumer Duty was published in July ’22. With this new Duty, the FCA has stated that “[the] new duty sets higher and clearer standards of consumer protection across financial services and requires firms to put their customers’ needs first”, which strongly implies that they’re not overly satisfied by the efforts of the financial services sector so far in Treating Customers Fairly. 

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