Supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances
At FSCS we are committed to continually improving the service we provide to our customers; we want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to make a claim.
Part of this is making sure we can offer the most appropriate help to any of our customers that are vulnerable. We’ve recently enhanced the service for everyone, and we now ask all customers at the start of their claim application if they consider themselves to have a vulnerability.
- We also understand that not all our customers may be vulnerable when they first submit a claim.
- People might become vulnerable at any time; therefore, we encourage all our customers to let us know anytime they start to feel they need additional support.
- Throughout our website, you may often see us use the term “customer care”. This is because internally we recognise that the term “vulnerable” isn’t always how individuals demonstrating vulnerable characteristics would like to be labelled. We therefore use the term “Customer Care” to refer to the fact that some customers require a greater degree of care and support in using our service.
What else is FSCS doing to help?
As well as the changes to our application forms, we’re continuing to evolve our service in other ways to support our vulnerable customers:
- We now have customer care champions who have had extensive training to deal with every customer’s individual situation. We partnered with the Money Advice Trust to deliver this training.
- Our customer care champions meet regularly to share hints and tips and spread this knowledge as widely as possible. This network of champions means we’re more joined-up and consistent and better able to help those who need us.
- All our front-line staff now use an interactive toolkit that shares the key training and lessons learned.
- We now have a customer care dashboard that helps tell the story behind the data, and the types of vulnerability we see, so we are better able to make adjustments and serve our customers more personally.
- We are also working with a new accessibility needs provider to enhance our offering to meet different accessibility care needs, e.g., providing alternative formats like braille and large print. This is facilitated at the start of the application process.
Looking forward
We will continue to enhance our approach by listening to our customers and ensuring they can tell us about any care or communication needs at the earliest opportunity, so we can further tailor the service we provide.
We’re here to help you every step of the way when you claim with us. We want everyone to feel they can claim with us directly so they can keep all the compensation they’re entitled to. Some customers use a representative, such as a Claims Management Company or a Solicitor, to claim on their behalf, but a representative will take a cut of any compensation you receive. It’s no quicker to use a representative as they must follow the same process as you would to make a claim.
If you do feel you want someone to handle your claim for you, another option is to use a trusted friend or relative as your representative. You can find out all you need to know on our personal representative page.
