Addressing the Needs of our Vulnerable Customers
Who are vulnerable customers?
Customers can be regarded as vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons. In its finalized guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1 – Chapter 2), the FCA has noted four factors listed below that can act as drivers to potential or actual vulnerability:
- Health – physical disability, chronic illness, visual/audio impairments, mental health issues, impaired mental capacity
- Life events – bereavement, job loss, relationship breakdowns;
- Resilience – lacking the ability to withstand financial or emotional shocks;
- Capability – low knowledge of financial matters or low confidence in managing money (financial capability). Low capacity in areas such as literacy, numeracy or digital skills.
How do we identify vulnerable customers?
It is important to recognise that certain customers may need extra support. We must also be mindful of identifying customers who might be vulnerable. To achieve this, we can utilise the four categories listed above to monitor and assess their wellbeing.
No list can be exhaustive but examples of additional support indicators could include:
- Changes in the circumstances of existing customers;
- Verbal indicators, e.g. if a customer mentions they do not understand the information given to them;
- Physical indicators, e.g. signs that a customer is unwell (e.g. shortness of breath or signs of agitation) or has a disability or impairment, mention of medication;
- Communication difficulties, e.g. customers asking for help reading documents, customers who cannot or find it difficult to communicate in English, customers who are uncomfortable with email;
- Customer understanding, e.g. signs of confusion or customers asking for information to be repeated
- Changes in transaction behaviour, e.g. underlying customers making more or larger value money transfer requests than usual, unusual activity account activity, regular payments stopping suddenly.
How are we helping vulnerable customers?
Everyone at Shpun receives continuous training and guidance to ensure that they have the skills to support vulnerable customers. Whether is managing conversations using handy protocols like TEXAS, or offering the required support through written induction training workshops and support tools.
When a vulnerable customer is identified, our staff will:
- Provide additional opportunities for the vulnerable customer to ask questions about the information they have provided;
- Continuously seek the vulnerable customer's confirmation that they have understood the information that has been provided;
- Consider whether there is another member of Staff who might be better positioned to assist the customer, for example where there is a language barrier.;
- Ask if there is anyone with the vulnerable customer who is able to assist. If not, and the member of Staff feels this will be beneficial to the vulnerable customer, they should make suitable arrangements to continue with the conversation at a future date, when someone is available to assist the vulnerable customer;
- Offer the vulnerable customer the opportunity to complete the onboarding process/ proceed with the service after a period of further consideration.
We value your feedback?
We value your feedback, if you have any recommendations or feedback on how we can improve the support we provide to vulnerable customers, please share it with us via info@shpun.co.uk.