Service With Respect Day

04 October 2022

The Institute of Customer Service is today celebrating Service with Respect Day in response to a change in legislation that protects all customer-facing workers from hostility and abuse. How sad that we needed a change in legislation to provide protection for customer-facing staff from angry and dissatisfied customers. It feels as though we have fixed a by-product not the problem itself.

Our work at RBL always starts with understanding the customers – who are they and what do they want from a business or service? If they are getting upset and angry, we need to understand why and then work to fix the problems to prevent them from happening before we get to the stage of customers becoming hostile and abusive towards staff.

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The Human-Tech Interface

03 October 2022

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a seismic shift in the development of technology deployed within contact centres and used by customer services teams from AI and Chatbots to Speech and Text analytics tools. There’re dashboards for all sorts of metrics and a desire to ‘deflect’ customers to digital self service solutions to allow firms to keep the costs of supporting customer services under control.

Whilst I can become a bit ranty about ‘deflecting to digital’ (I once posted on LinkedIn about it if you’re interested) I’m not averse to directing customers to self-service online tools (if they actually work!) and I wholly advocate the use of technology to support front-line customer service staff to deliver an excellent customer experience.

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National Customer Service Week 2022

30 September 2022

National Customer Service Week (NCSW) 2022 is upon us. It’s a week-long celebration of customer service, taking place 3rd to 7th October 2022. It’s an international celebration calling attention to the importance of customer service and the people who provide it. It aims to boost the morale of those delivering the service and build teamwork. 

Here at ReynoldsBusbyLee (RBL) you’ll find a team who are passionate about the customer experience and ensuring that the voices of customers reach the boardrooms and decision makers of the brands that we work with. We’ve developed some great tools and techniques to get our clients hearing their customers' voices loud and clear and they work across all sectors too!

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Why Vulnerability Matters And Why You Should Invest In Recognising Vulnerable Customers And Making Reasonable Adjustments

04 May 2022

Why Vulnerability Matters

Supporting customers who find themselves in vulnerable circumstances is now a priority for many organisations and the regulators that oversee them. Regulators who have declared an interest in this area include the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), The Fundraising Regulator, OFGEM and OFCOM as well as a concern of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). 

In some sectors regulators have already issued guidance on their expectations and clearly stated that they will be overseeing activity whilst applying a ‘vulnerability lens’. It’s clear that the FCA is planning to go even further than the guidance published back in February 2021, as they’re now well into a consultation on Consumer Duty. In other sectors, professional membership bodies have launched charters or commitments that they want their members to sign up to. The UK’s DMA (Data and Marketing Association) even has vulnerability under its Responsible Marketing pillar and runs Masterclasses for members and non-members under the training arm of the IDM (see link below for booking details). 

This is clearly an issue that is being taken seriously with substantial fines already issued to firms who have not served their vulnerable customers fairly. In March ’22 the ICO alone issued fines totalling £405,000 to five companies for making over 750,000 unwanted marketing calls which were targeting older, vulnerable people. 

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