Customer Policies

This policy outlines how IRIS Software Group will identify and assist vulnerable customers. The goal of this policy is to ensure that every customer, particularly those who are vulnerable, receives equitable treatment and appropriate support when they reach out to IRIS.

Definition of a vulnerable customer

A vulnerable customer needs extra support or protection when dealing with an organisation due to personal or situational factors. Vulnerabilities can be long-term, short-term, or unexpected and may involve health issues, major life events, financial difficulties, or language challenges. Each customer’s situation should be individually evaluated to determine their need for additional assistance.

Supporting vulnerable customers

IRIS aims to support vulnerable customers by recognising their needs and providing them with appropriate help. Our staff are skilled to recognise vulnerable customers so we can go beyond our usual protocols to assist them. We identify vulnerability by looking for indicators during interactions, such as trouble in expressing themselves and upset.

Helping vulnerable customers

IRIS will undertake these actions to provide appropriate assistance to vulnerable customers:

Communication: Our staff will speak clearly and calmly, ensuring the customer understands. We will adapt our communication methods based on the customer’s needs.

Dignity: We will treat vulnerable customers with respect.

Adaptability: IRIS will offer the help needed, even if it is not part of the usual protocols

Learning and Awareness

All staff will receive training on identifying and handling vulnerable customers as outlined in this policy, with regular refresher courses to ensure a consistent and empathetic approach.

Experts from the Customer Experience Team will be available to provide guidance.

This policy will be reviewed regularly for effectiveness and compliance. Incidents involving vulnerable customers will be documented and used for improvement.

IRIS are a supporter of the Service with Respect Campaign, launched by the Institute of Customer Service. This policy sets out clearly what we consider to be unacceptable behaviour and the steps we may take to deal with such behaviour. The treatment of IRIS employees is our key priority.

The purpose of this policy is to:

• Provide a framework for colleagues to follow when dealing with such situations
• Protect our colleagues from abusive/unacceptable behaviour, creating a safe and respectful environment
• Ensure we manage customer behaviour consistently and
• Help deter such behaviour in the first instance

Definition of unacceptable behaviour

Unacceptable behaviour means acting in a way that is unreasonable, regardless of the level of someone’s stress, frustration or anger. It may involve acts, words or physical gestures that could cause another person distress or discomfort, aggressive or abusive behaviour.
This is behaviour or language (written or spoken) that could cause our staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused. This includes threatening emails, telephone calls, meetings, and comments on social media or elsewhere.

For example:

• insulting or degrading language, including inappropriate banter, innuendo, or malicious allegations
• any form of physical violence or threats of physical violence
• derogatory racist, sexist, ageist, or homophobic remarks
• comments relating to disability, perceived gender, religion, belief, or any other personal characteristic

How we will respond to incidents of unacceptable behaviour

We do not expect our employees to tolerate unacceptable behaviour when communicating with our customers. When this happens, our employees have the right to:

• place callers on hold
• terminate the call
• not reply to an abusive email or letter – we will only review these communications to ensure no new issues have been raised

Before taking such action, we will always warn customers that they are behaving in an unacceptable way, providing them with the opportunity to change their behaviour.

Where these circumstances arise, we will take the following steps:

• We’ll ask customers to modify their behaviour and explain why
• If the behaviour continues to be unacceptable, our employees will remove themselves from the situation. If the communication is by telephone, the caller will be told that the call will be terminated
• The employee will inform their manager who will keep a record of the incident. In all cases a manager will investigate the situation and decide what action to take. This could include limiting a customer’s contact with us

Communication restrictions

If customers continue to behave unacceptably, a senior manager can put in place a temporary or permanent communication restriction on a customer. If we decide to do this, we will tell the customer that we are doing, so setting out:

• Why we consider their behaviour unacceptable
• What action we are taking and if there is a time limit on the restrictions

If we decide to limit communication, we will make a note of the limitation in our records.
Communication might be:

• Limited to being conducted in writing
• Limited to a specific individual
• Limited to a specific email address or telephone number

In addition, we reserve the right to:

• Restrict contact to a nominated employee who will deal with all future calls or correspondence
• Restrict the issues on which we will correspond
• Block emails or telephone numbers if the number and length of communications sent is excessive
• Refuse to consider a complaint or any further contact in exceptional circumstances
• Take any other action which we consider necessary or appropriate to make this policy effective.

Review

We will regularly review any decision to restrict communications and when appropriate we may lift some or all restrictions.