Ombudsman Services | Mar 16, 2022
We really value our supplier relationships. Ensuring an ongoing open dialogue, enables us to maintain alignment on issues and to provide appropriate support to our service users.
Recent conversations highlighted an increase in calls from consumers in need of additional support. In response, we hosted a roundtable discussion on 3rd February where suppliers and consumer support organisations (Citizen Advice Extra Help Unit and Advice Direct Scotland) were able to share their experiences and approaches. The conversation was focused on how we could better support consumers and colleagues.
Round table participants engaged in a really valuable transparent conversation around providing additional support to consumers. We explored supporting consumers within the rules and regulations. This raised the question of when a consumer’s circumstances would warrant resolving an issue in a way that falls outside standard process.
The difficulties of determining how much, and what kind of support a particular consumer needs were discussed, alongside how we assess who needs additional support. Many shared their experiences, and potential solutions were suggested. The group agreed that further financial support is needed to not only help consumers with short term solutions, but also to look after them in the longer term. One longer term support initiative suggested was to assist consumers in assessing what they can afford in order to reduce their debt.
There was an appetite for gaining alignment in establishing principles for providing consumers with additional support, and for a more proactive stance in identifying potential preventative protective measures that could be undertaken. In addition to this, there was also a call for more open cross-sector communication to enable earlier identification of support needs.
There was a shared understanding that colleagues providing additional support to consumers, have an increased need for support themselves. The suppliers present talked openly about their current approaches and enjoyed the opportunity to explore new ideas. Methods of providing colleague support included use of ‘wellbeing’ portals, mental health first aiders and creating working groups. The importance of empowering and equipping colleagues to navigate difficult, and sometimes distressing calls, was also noted, as was the acknowledgement that not all colleagues are comfortable to do so.
We really appreciated the shared purpose and passion of those engaged in the round table event and are looking forward to continuing these discussions in our next Energy Supplier Liaison Panel on 7th April.