Happy new year to everyone. I hope you had a restful break after a busy service season. January is a time to reflect and set ambitions and aspirations for the year ahead. Unlike the many New Year’s resolutions that will…
At this time of year, I'm reminded of a Christmas classic, The Polar Express – the story of a magical and, at times, turbulent journey to the North Pole, where our hero comes to appreciate the wonder of Christmas and…
When it comes to service excellence, it's interesting how quickly new technology becomes commonplace and makes us forget about the way we used to do things. If we rewind the clock just a decade, cash payments accounted for more than…
The arrival of Consumer Duty earlier this year is a clear sign that the FCA is placing a greater emphasis on all aspects of the customer journey and in particular on positive outcomes for customers. In the face of falling…
There is never a good time for a business’s systems to go down, but outages at a major bank last week proved particularly unfortunate timing. With customers on the lookout for Black Friday deals ahead of the festive season – or just…
Black Friday marks the start of one of the busiest, and potentially profitable, trading periods of the year for retailers. But this year, as the sales launch once more, it’s impossible to ignore that customer service is under more pressure…
As many of you will know, back in July 2020 we launched Service with Respect, a campaign to address the unacceptable levels of abuse that service staff across all sectors were experiencing. The catalyst for this was a dramatic rise…
Some of you may be surprised to hear that we’re already more than three months on from the start of Consumer Duty, the new regulation which gave the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulatory powers to set higher and clearer standards…
World leaders descended on Bletchley Park this week to try and crack the enigma of AI that delivers prosperity without imperilling humanity. Billed as the first ever global summit on Artificial Intelligence, the AI Safety Summit addressed the risks and…
As we move through the final few months of the year – known in retail-focused sectors as the Golden Quarter – there is an opportunity for consumers to spend more time in their local communities and high streets looking for…