A report issued on 18th May 2023, from the Institute of Customer Service has highlighted that "mounting abuse directed at customer-facing staff is causing a retention crisis, with a record 44% of employees contemplating leaving their roles.*"
Over 40% of customers are reported as increasingly venting their frustrations at front-line staff through verbal harassment, insults, threats and in some cases physical violence.
It’s deaf awareness week this week and this year’s theme is ‘deaf inclusion’. Action on Hearing Loss estimates that more than 12 million UK adults have some degree of hearing impairment or deafness.
I’ve watched and read several interesting discussions this week explaining how hearing loss can lead to withdrawal and isolation as there’s often an embarrassment factor and stigma attached to hearing loss and a real reluctance in many to use hearing aids when the need arises. When we think of hearing aids, the stereotypical image we draw in our mind’s eye is of the large hearing aids our grandparents wore, which whistled or buzzed, and they’d eventually switch off and fall silent, becoming detached from the conversation. However, there’s been a huge development in recent years over the size of hearing aids and the improvements they can bring to your hearing if you are experiencing hearing loss. There’s no need to feel isolated or excluded any longer.
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.
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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