Vulnerable customers and the line

Vulnerability is a word companies put in a policy PDF and families put in a Friday evening. Ofcom requires providers to consider customers whose circumstances mean a generic process will harm them. That can be a third-party on the account, a careful digital-voice migration, a letter instead of an app, a pause on aggressive collection. It is not a secret faster ONT. Mixing those expectations is how people feel lied to by a flag that was only ever a process.

Tell them, each time

New retailer, new flag. Switching is a new relationship. Put extra care on the order and on day one. Put a third party on in their form, while the account holder can still confirm.

A hospital stay is a reason to use the process, not a reason to invent an account in a grandchild’s name on the quiet.

Voice is often the product

Telecare, a pendant, a relative who only uses the hall phone: the broadband switch is a voice project. Digital voice plus a power cut is a known risk. Batteries, mobiles, a tested path.

A cheaper broadband-only deal that kills a care path is not cheaper. See dual play and the landline piece.

Repair, without the helicopter

Ask the published extra-care repair hours. If they miss, that is evidence. If they never published, that is also evidence.

A 4G backup is still part of a care spec. Flags do not replace physics.

A vulnerability flag is a handling instruction. It is not a network. Fill it in anyway.

The market can be careful if you make it be careful, in their forms, every time the shop changes. That is the job. The rest is physics and a backup.