Blog
Consumer Standards – How can suppliers rebuild trust?
Following the publication of Ofgem's Consumer Standards decision, we look at the practical steps for implementation, focussing specifically on rebuilding trust with the customer, through the development of specific advisor skills, and tailored customer treatments.
Difficult Conversations – Equipping collections agents for optimal support
With Christmas on the horizon, consumer spending is set to face its usual seasonal increase, adding extra pressure to critical areas like credit card payments and energy bills. Inevitably, some consumers will find themselves in financial difficulty over the coming months, leading to more collections conversations with their service provider.
BFY Group wins Business of the Year and Outstanding Growth awards
BFY Group celebrated a double win at the 2023 Nottinghamshire Business Awards, picking up the region’s prize for Business of the Year, as well as being winners in the Outstanding Growth category.
Financial Services and Utilities – What unites these sectors?
In recent years, Financial Services and Utilities have become dynamic and fast changing. Customers sit at the forefront of both sectors, with their impact on daily life creating expectations for quick, frictionless, and secure interactions. And with ever-evolving expectation, comes greater challenges for the organisations that provide these services.
Localised Energy Bills – How do they differ to the Price Cap?
We’re all familiar with the headline figure of the Energy Price Cap. Set most recently at £1,834 (following Ofgem's reduction in TDCV's), the number serves the useful purpose of providing an estimated average bill for customers. But rarely is there a discussion about the reality of this figure, and how it can’t possibly reflect the actual bills faced by households across the UK. In short, this is far from the case.
Winter complaints are coming – and this year, the pressure feels different
Lower temperatures, increased energy usage, and more customer complaints. Suppliers face this challenge during any winter, but this year, there's greater pressure at play. Vulnerability and customer support will remain top of the agenda, following last month's House of Commons Committee report, alongside the ongoing focus on Customer Standards by Ofgem.
Service vs Sales – A dilemma for suppliers as the market reopens
With the prospect of a switching resurgence on the horizon, it will be interesting to see whether suppliers decide to chase the volume of new customers, or seek to prioritise customer retention. In short, many are likely to face a ‘Service vs Sales’ dilemma – bringing a degree of unpredictability to the market.
Working at BFY - Mental Wellbeing Month
This year, we decided to run our first Mental Wellbeing Month at BFY, which came to a close earlier this week for World Mental Health Day. It’s been a hugely successful period, filled with initiatives and activities to help our team make the conscious effort to think about their mental health and wellbeing.
Customer indebtedness is set to worsen this winter
Customer indebtedness is growing at an unsustainable rate. And it’s projected to get worse as we head into winter. Analysis from our Market Insights supports this, highlighting three key points, which we’ve explored further in this blog.
The Energy Price Cap – A tragedy in four acts
The Energy Price Cap was introduced by Ofgem back in 2019, to ensure “that prices for people on default energy tariffs are fair and that they reflect the cost of energy". If the goal was to prevent loyalty premiums (which was the original stated intention), then we’d argue that a relative price cap would have been better.
An update on B2B Credit Risk
Business deaths have begun to decline from a peak position in late 2021 and early 2022 – the latent effect of the pandemic on business viability has potentially now passed. However, businesses continue to operate in challenging circumstances with economic pressures weighing heavily.
Closing the Service Gap - Developing Great Conversations
Developing great customer conversations - it's an art. To make it happen, advisers need to be maximising the impact of their voice and the words they use, both of which can be the most powerful tools available in a customer servicing environment. As a leader, how can you develop and empower teams to have effective customer conversations, on a consistent basis?
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