ACCESSIBILITY TOOLS

Bringing the voice of your customers into your boardroom and working practices

The Rising Cost of School Uniforms in the UK: An Unaffordable Necessity

 School uniform September 2023.jpg

It’s that time of year in England when social media news feeds are filled with pictures of children standing by their front doors wearing their school uniform as they head back to school. But those uniforms have been causing me concerns.

Earlier in the summer, I read this BBC news article about Parent’s giving up their family holiday, due the need to save for school uniform costs. This article reports that parents are spending approximately £422 on Secondary, and £287 on Primary uniforms – not including branded items which cost more. As mum to three children, the rising cost of school uniforms has not escaped me.

READ MORE

Our latest infographic – Financial Vulnerability in the UK - published as Consumer Duty goes live

 Financial Vulnerability in the UK

Consumer Duty from the Financial Conduct Authority is now in place, so it seems like the appropriate time to share our latest infographic about the uphill climb faced by many vulnerable customers experiencing financial vulnerability in the UK. The FCAs’ Financial Lives survey from May 2022 showed a significant increase in the number of UK adults experiencing low financial resilience – up to “1 in 4 (24%) of all UK adults who could quickly find themselves in difficulty if they suffer a financial shock”. The FCA advised that “this result is much worse that we recorded in our February 2020 Financial Lives survey”.

READ MORE

Why Refresher Training Is Important

 

A person writing on a post-it notes attached to a board during a training session

The Consumer Duty requirements from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are now just weeks away from the first implementation date for new and current products and with it brings a renewed focus on vulnerable customers. FCA regulated firms are now required to ensure that vulnerable customers receive the same ‘good’ outcomes as non-vulnerable customers and firms must be able to evidence this. 

READ MORE

A Crisis in Customer Service

 Service With Respect Facebook Social Card 940x788 11

 

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. 

READ MORE

NOTE! This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

Our website uses COOKIES to help improve your experience. READ MORE or ACCEPT ALL and move on.

Cookies

Here we explain what cookies are, how we use them and informs you of your choices.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of text sent by your web browser by a website you visit. A cookie file is stored in your web browser and allows the service or a third-party to recognise you and make your next visit easier and the service more useful to you.

How we use cookies

When you use and access our website a number of cookie files are placed in your web browser. We use these cookies to enable website functionality and to gain insights into your preferences to the services we provide such as to store your preferences to enable advertisements delivery including behavioural advertising.

We use a combination of cookies such as session and persistent. We also use essential cookies to authenticate users to prevent fraudulent use of our website.

For the full disclosure of the types of cookies we use please click here

More information about cookies

If you would like more information regarding cookies please click here to visit the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) website.