Bereavement Support Toolkit

It's never easy when a customer tells you someone has died. This guide helps businesses respond with more care and more clarity, so staff can support bereaved customers through the practical side of things without sounding cold, awkward or rushed. It covers what to say when bereavement or terminal illness is disclosed, how to record information properly, how to make processes easier for grieving customers and where to signpost if extra support may help. It's a practical guide for teams who want to handle these conversations better and build a more thoughtful bereavement process around them.

When someone is acting under a Power of Attorney, teams need to know what they can do, what they cannot do, and how to handle the situation properly. This guide helps businesses respond with more confidence when a customer’s affairs are being managed by someone else. It covers the basics of understanding Power of Attorney, checking that arrangements are valid, responding to requests, and knowing what to do if something does not feel right.

This useful guide helps businesses look more carefully at how they communicate with customers, where understanding can break down, and what teams can do to make decisions easier, clearer and more accessible. It covers both practicalities and compliance considerations, with guidance on Consumer Duty requirements, reviewing communications, checking understanding in real conversations, using feedback and testing, and gathering evidence that your approach is working.

Fire evacuation plans only work if they take real people into account. This guide helps housing providers, landlords and building managers think more carefully about residents who may not understand a standard evacuation plan or may not be able to follow it without extra support. It covers practical steps such as checking understanding, having better conversations with residents, identifying fire risks, preparing Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans and making information more accessible. It is a useful guide for anyone responsible for resident safety in managed or tenanted buildings. PLEASE NOTE: this document is for guidance only and does not substitute the key requirement and duty placed on employers and businesses which is to develop a premises emergency evacuation plan covering all likely scenarios of occupation.

Bereavement calls are never all the same, even when the reason for contact sounds similar at first. This guide gives staff a set of detailed personas to help them understand how differently grief, shock, stress and terminal illness can show up when someone needs to close an account or explain what has happened. It is useful for training, team discussions and call handling practice because it moves past a one-size-fits-all approach. The guide includes 12 personas, examples of helpful first responses, examples to avoid, and signposting that can be shared after the conversation.

Economic abuse can be hard to spot, especially when the signs show up as unusual account activity, restricted access to money or behaviour that looks easy to explain away. This guide helps teams recognise economic abuse as a form of coercive control and respond in a way that is careful, practical and supportive. It is designed to help customer-facing staff notice warning signs, raise concerns sensitively and understand what support may be available. The guide covers common types of economic abuse, possible indicators, how to respond to customers and where to signpost for specialist help.

When staff are dealing with sensitive or difficult customer conversations, they need guidance they can use there and then. This essential bundle brings together 15 practical quick guides to help teams respond with more confidence, more consistency and a better understanding of what support may be needed. The bundle covers a wide range of real customer situations, including vulnerability, bereavement, suicidal thoughts, anger, understanding, neurodiversity, older customers, first time customers and respectful communication. It's been designed to give frontline teams simple, useful guidance they can apply straight away, while also helping organisations strengthen training and day-to-day customer support.

Angry customer conversations can put a lot of pressure on frontline teams, especially when emotions are running high. This essential guide gives businesses practical help for handling angry customers in a calmer and more structured way, while still treating people fairly and with empathy. The guide covers common triggers, vulnerable circumstances, de-escalation, internal processes, unacceptable behaviour, team support and how to learn from these conversations to improve service.