customer experience – Oliver Pickup

Five ways financial services operators can build trust in the digital age

With cybercrime on the rise, customers expecting a better online banking experience, and more players in the market, organisations should push for positive reviews, cut back on nuisance communication, and be transparent

American business magnate Warren Buffett’s warning that “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it” is a precious lesson worth heeding by financial services operators seeking to generate trust in the digital age.

After working hard to claw back favour following the global economic crash in 2008, the industry generally impressed during the pandemic. But with cybercrime on the rise, customers expecting a better online banking experience, and more players in the market, building trust is increasingly challenging.

A report published in April by global cybersecurity company Imperva, based on responses from almost 7,000 consumers across Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, found that 63% of people don’t trust financial services organisations to keep their data safe. Clearly, there is much work to do.

Here are five ways financial services operators can build trust in the digital age.

1. Actively push for positive reviews

When was the last time you didn’t buy something because a bad review put you off? It’s the same for financial services operators. Hence why those in the sector must do more than monitor online reviews, suggests Jeremy Helm, a financial analyst at Modern World Business Solutions. “You need to be actively pushing to gain positive reviews,” he says. “You can set up an automated email via Trustpilot that goes out a week after a purchase is complete.”

And if the reviews are not favourable, learn from them. “Don’t ignore them,” continues Helm. “Others will be reading the negative reviews before making a purchase, so make sure to answer the complaint promptly and politely. But also, if you’re not to blame, there is nothing wrong with highlighting where the issue lay respectfully and factually.”

2. Cut back on nuisance communication

A recent freedom of information request, made by customer communication firm Quadient, showed an increase in spam communications from financial services operators over the past year, which is eroding consumer trust, according to the company’s principal of banking and financial services, Andrew Stevens.

“Operators urgently need to cut back on nuisance communication – irrelevant or non-useful contact, which only damages trust and drives customers away,” he says. The FOI request showed 8,796 banking-related spam calls and texts were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2021 – 38% higher than the 2020 figure. Additionally, insurance-related nuisance calls and texts rose by 40%, with 3,989 complaints.

“Our research shows 43% of consumers are willing to blacklist businesses for sending spam,” continues Stevens. “Instead of bombarding customers with irrelevant offers and deals, they should remember that every piece of communication is an opportunity to win customers’ trust. For instance, by providing useful information to help them save money amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.”

3. Learn from tech titans and be clear about values

“Interestingly, the five most trusted brands across any industry globally are all large-scale tech firms,” says Nick Chadbourne, CEO of LMS, which supplies conveyancing services. “They provide a seamless cross-platform experience that is personalised to individual users. Google is probably the best example.”

He spots a paradox, though. “These companies are probably utilising our data for commercial gain more than any other business. Yet, there is a perceived trust from consumers. This is partly because of how these businesses fit with their values. But also because they deliver great customer experience and hyper-personalisation. Financial services firms could benefit and build trust by taking a similar approach.”

Sébastien Marotte, president of EMEA at content management company Box, agrees. However, he calls for greater clarity about data use. “The best way for financial service organisations to build and maintain trust is through open and transparent compliance reporting.”

4. Don’t forget the importance of human touch

Financial services organisations collect more information on their customers than any other industry, according to Adam Mayer, a director at data and analytics firm, Qlik. “Trust is imperative to this industry – and needs to be built from the ground up,” he says. “Don’t forget the importance of a human touch when building trust in digital technologies.”

While AI and predictive analytics can generate powerful recommendations, employees will provide oversight into actual decision-making, Mayer adds. “And, more importantly, they will explain those decisions to the customer. Blending human and machine insights improves the accountability actions being made, which helps smoothen some of the hurdles around trust and regulation.”

Additionally, ensuring employees have the requisite data literacy to understand, question and apply the predictive forecasts to their decision-making process is critical.

5. Show your AI workings

As more financial services are investing in AI solutions, it’s vital to show how decisions have been made. “Explainable AI addresses one of the key issues for banks using AI applications, as they typically operate as ‘black boxes’ offering little if any discernible insight into how they reach their decisions across lending and fraud detection and to improve customer service,” says Hani Hagras, chief science officer at banking software company Temenos.

He provides an example. “With buy now pay later (BNPL), Temenos Explainable AI provides additional transparency, enabling the customer to understand why a particular flavour of BNPL was recommended to them and make an informed choice. This increases trust in the BNPL service and puts the customer in control.”

This article was first published in Raconteur’s The new financial services client experience insights report, sponsored by Seismic, in August 2022

Sales talk: how conversational AI can win over customers

Conversational AI can mimic human interactions. With today’s consumers turned off by the hard sell, the technology holds strong potential for businesses

When it comes to sales, businesses should reverse Elvis’s famous advice: a little more conversation and a little less action, please.

The secret to success with today’s consumers revolves around small talk and a long-term approach. Direct approaches – seeking to add notches to the sales equivalent of a bedpost – are a huge turn-off for customers.

Happily, so-called conversational AI is now mature enough to assist adroitly with the more mundane topics, enabling humans to enter the chat room later, at the most appropriate point.

Conversational AI refers to tech solutions such as chatbots or virtual agents that use vast volumes of data, machine learning and natural language processing to imitate human interactions. Businesses today must adopt the technology as a matter of urgency, with laggards likely to lose out.

Technology doesn’t have working hours like a human employee does, meaning that customers can gain the help they desire on their terms

Over 70% of customers expect conversational service, meaning human-like interactions – complete with emojis, gifs, images and videos – whenever they engage with a brand, according to Zendesk. But only 40% of businesses can deliver this successfully.

Little wonder the global software-as-a-service company recently announced new capabilities for its Sunshine Platform, a customer relationship management service, including conversational automation via bot technology. The upgrade enables organisations to expand automation to messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and allows them to build and train custom bots to address common issues.

“A quick conversation can resolve most things in life,” says Matthias Goehler, Zendesk’s chief technology officer in EMEA. “Embracing advances in AI to deliver conversational exchanges with customers easily is a natural direction for customer experience (CX) teams to take.”

Resolving customer issues

One of the most significant benefits of conversational AI is that all customer communications are retained, Goehler adds. This means a more complete picture is achieved, allowing businesses to understand people’s personal preferences better and enrich their experience. It facilitates a personalised, data-driven service, removing some of the burdens on human agents and empowering them to do more for the customer in less time, he says.

“A conversational approach makes interactions more informed – built with the context of the customer’s history. When done right, it can even help increase a customer’s spending with you by making useful and simple recommendations to purchase from within a chat.”

Katie King is the author of two books about AI for sales and marketing and a member of the government’s All-Party Parliamentary Group Taskforce for the enterprise adoption of AI. Companies that embrace conversational AI will charm employees and customers alike, she says.

“Often, many of the queries that cross the service agent’s desk are frequently asked questions with simple answers,” she says. “While these queries might be easy to answer, they still take up valuable time and limit the agent’s capabilities to handle some of the more complex issues. It’s overwhelming and leads to faster employee burnout and potential staffing issues for the company.”

Conversational AI can help tackle this challenge, so appeals to many organisations, notes King. “AI can cut out that first step of the process by engaging the customer and potentially resolving their issue without human intervention,” she says. “Additionally, technology doesn’t have working hours like a human employee does, meaning that customers can gain the help they desire on their terms.”

When done right, it can even help increase a customer’s spending with you by making useful and simple recommendations to purchase

With the surge in energy prices, concerned customers of E.ON – the largest energy and renewable electricity supplier in the UK – have certainly wanted help. Conversational AI is easing the load.

Nikolai Berenbrock is the company’s head of conversational experiences. He says the company currently has more than 50 conversational AI solutions across the group, serving customers and employees and covering about 30% of demand. “This has enabled us to offer a better customer service experience and a massive reduction in our operational costs,” Berenbrock says.

E.ON uses AI to automate repetitive tasks so that agents are “available to jump in where they can make a valuable difference”, he adds. The technology “allows us to scale our customer service in a location and time-independent way, so that we can be where our customers are by offering our service on our website in a LiveChat channel, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, telephony channel, etc, whenever they need us, 24/7.”

Talking up the possibilities

Jason Costain is head of fraud prevention at NatWest, which serves 19 million customers across 12 banking and financial services brands. He offers another example of how conversational AI is being utilised.

“Using voice-biometric technology, we’re building a clear picture of our customers’ voices and what criminal voices sound like,” he says. “We can detect when we get a fraudulent voice coming in across our network as soon as it happens. Using a combination of biometric and behavioural data, we now have far greater confidence that we are speaking to our genuine customers and keeping them safe.”

Demand for conversational AI isn’t limited to customer experience, says Goehler. “We’re seeing huge demand from companies using our solutions for employee experience, with tickets filled by corporate employees jumping 31% last year – nearly double the rates seen by customer-facing support teams at B2B and B2C companies,” he says, signposting the direction of travel.

Despite the clear advantages of conversational AI and the momentum behind the technology, Goehler sounds a note of caution to business leaders who, to quote another Elvis song, can’t help falling in love with the technology. “While just over half of EMEA companies report that chatbots are becoming more human-like, AI can’t – and shouldn’t – be a 100% solution,” he says.

Zendesk research indicates more than 60% of customers will walk away after one poor experience – up 22% from last year. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, who can blame their suspicious minds?

This article was first published in Raconteur’s AI for Business report in June 2022

How has the pandemic transformed digital healthcare for patients and practitioners?

Public and private healthcare providers have been encouraged by the digital maturity of customers, and now are using data to shift to more proactive rather than reactive services

As the UK braces itself again due to the emergence of the omicron variant, and with a record 5.83 million people awaiting non-emergency hospital treatment – according to official figures from the end of September – the continued development of digital healthcare services is critical.

The pandemic necessitated the acceleration of digital transformation across the healthcare sector. For example, the National Health Service embraced digital solutions to track and trace, rollout vaccine programmes, and implement various smartphone apps, all of which have been well received.

From a customer experience perspective, there is obviously an appetite for digital healthcare. Granted, this has been fed by the pandemic-induced lockdowns. But it’s telling that the NHS is now seeking to build out its video consultation provision and move to a hybrid offering, using face-to-face consultations when appropriate. This approach reduces costs and is more convenient for patients.

To keep pace with customer expectations, private healthcare providers have also undergone seismic change in the last two years. “It’s been a crazy time,” says James Elliott, head of customer and commercial experience at Bupa Global. “We’ve seen a massive digital transformation, and there is a big opportunity in private healthcare as we move to proactive health management.”

However, legacy problems are halting progress in the digital era, he concedes. “For a long time, we thought that the best thing to do was plaster our telephone number on every piece of paper and membership card, but that has come back to bite us,” says Elliott. Furthermore, 40% of customers contact the organisation via email, an admittedly “horrible experience.”

He adds: “We are trying not to make the mistake of creating infinite loops for customers to fall into, and we want to educate them to make the right choice. We have created a digital-first portal to triage their contact, and that could involve an urgent phone call or an outbound scheduled call.”

We’ve seen a massive digital transformation, and there is a big opportunity in private healthcare as we move to proactive health management

Bupa Global’s LivePerson platform, established before the pandemic, has enhanced its connection with customers leading to a tenfold increase in satisfaction levels. But, as live interactions – even phone calls – are “hard to manage,” Elliott says digital chat “is the answer,” whether via WhatsApp or WeChat in China. “It has to be asynchronous,” he argues.

To better organise the urgency of customer needs, Bupa Global has “put a lot of time and money” into automated systems and conversational artificial intelligence. “We want to build a trusted relationship with our customers, and so improving natural language processing capabilities is key,” adds Elliot.

Alice Pan, chief medical officer and global head of health operations at Bima, a Swedish company that delivers health and insurance services in emerging markets, agrees that developing digital services is what patients and practitioners want. Bima is creating an asynchronous chat function, having been encouraged by the digital maturity of its customers.

The organisation, which operates in nine markets in Asia and Africa, offered a telemedicine service during the pandemic, and it quickly became customers’ preferred channel for first contact, with over half (58%) ranking it top.

While this was a surprise for Pan and her team, completely “shattering preconceptions,” it validated a shift to more digital solutions. And in time, with the customer data gathered from digital interactions, Bima is aiming to provide a more preventative, proactive and personalised service.

“We are getting to know our customers better, and we are collecting data to serve them better,” says Pan. “For the first six months of the pandemic, we learnt a lot, and it was tough; it was all reactive.

“It wasn’t until the latter half of 2020 that we started to think more strategically about what the pandemic meant for mobile health and Bima. Now, though, we have a clear plan of how we can grow in the next five years. “And,” she adds, “it’s exciting, especially for our customers.”

This article, sponsored by Vonage, was first published on Raconteur in December 2021

Seven key steps to improving the digital customer experience

Country manager of UK and Ireland, Matthew Parker from Vonage, a global business cloud communications leader, shares his thoughts on the key lessons from the recent ‘Reimagining digital customer experience and brand engagement’ roundtable event

At the roundtable (written up here), the passion for customer experience came across from everyone, loud and clear. There were plenty of great statistics in there, too; I love stats. I wrote down seven things during the discussion, and these are my key takeaways.

Humans: We discussed the evolution of humans and how technology has to be intuitive. I think there is a link between humans and smart automation. Certainly, natural language processing and understanding sentiments in emails and messages is an area of investment and innovation. As another classic example, though, you want to know where your parcel is on its journey to your door. It’s a commonly asked, simple question that can be solved by automation. Tracking technology means that humans are not needed, but there are plenty of other things that do require human input and touch.

Trust: Someone mentioned trust. And a few people had different definitions of trust, but the two words I took away, linked to developing consumer trust and loyalty, were security and integrity.

The ecommerce journey: This was another subject. There was a great stat on ecommerce growth: the pandemic spurred a 130% increase in ecommerce adoption. But looking at the ecommerce journey is so important, especially when working out where to remove friction.

Experimentation: Someone said: “Have a go and try digital transformation.” I love that. I attended an Amazon Web Services (AWS) summit a few years ago, and despite that digital transformation had been around for a long time, thousands of people there were wondering where to start. The speaker on stage, from AWS, said: “Just have a go, just have a go, pick your burning platform and just have a go.” In many ways, that’s still going on, which is great to hear.

Brand connection and value exchange: Together these make a potent combination. There has to be something for the customer in return for their data.

The use of data: This final point wraps the session up nicely. Collecting data in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has to have a context in terms of how an organisation will use the data. That’s the essential bit. Then there is the integration of that data in the customer journey. For example, we all get driven mad if we are on an interactive voice response for 20 minutes and then, having filled out the information, the human customer support person asks us the same questions.

This article, sponsored by Vonage, was first published on Raconteur in November 2021

Reimagining digital customer experience and brand engagement

As companies strive toward a frictionless digital experience, they must find ways to improve customer loyalty and trust. How will digital customer experience evolve in the coming year?

The pandemic-induced explosion of ecommerce and the acceleration of digital transformation means that most companies will re-examine and revamp their customer experience strategies and capabilities in the coming year. With customer loyalty increasingly difficult to gain and sustain, pioneering, data-powered technologies will improve the seamlessness of these digital experiences and deliver better brand engagement.

A dozen leaders in the customer experience (CX) space spanning a range of industries – including healthcare, travel, insurance, and banking – met to discuss challenges and solutions, and debate the direction of travel in the coming year.

The lively discussion, supported by Vonage, a global business cloud communications leader, examined customer loyalty and trust, delivering CX with less friction, and how digital CX and brand engagement might develop in the coming year.

The conversation took off with Jack Smith, director of digital at British Airways (BA), who stressed the importance of ‘human touch’ with CX, an even more crucial point in the digital age. He said that BA is both “fortunate and unfortunate” because it is a well-recognised UK organisation.

When Smith joined BA, in 2017, there was much work to do on the digital CX front. “The challenge was that the digital channels didn’t represent the same human touch evident on our flights,” he said. “The tone of voice was robotic, like a booking system, and there was no conversation.”

While chatbots and other digital solutions are popular, Smith warned: “These wonderful bits of technology and digital channels miss the point if you are led by tech; you have to remember there’s a person at the other end.”

Lucy Jones, vice president of clinical at Oviva, noted that organisations now have the challenge of meeting ever-rising customer expectations. These have drastically evolved with the shift to digital platforms for ecommerce and thanks to the acceleration of digital transformation in health and communication since the start of the pandemic. As a result, retaining customer loyalty is perilously tricky.

Building trust is a must

“Digital loyalty is not like bricks-and-mortar businesses where the cost and complexity of transitioning [to a rival] is enough to buy a little slack,” Jones said. “In the digital space, it’s simple for that alliance to be lost if we are not meeting customer expectations.” Therefore, she added, it is imperative to build trust through “providing a seamless experience, avoiding wait and holding true to your promises.”

Avoiding friction is essential, agreed James Elliott, head of customer and commercial experience at Bupa Global. “We’re desperately trying not to make the mistake of creating infinite loops for customers to fall into,” he said. “We are attempting to educate customers to make the right choice, but still 40% of them want to contact us via email, which is not an optimal, quick experience.

Elliott added: “We want to create a digital-first portal to triage and prioritise customer needs, whether it’s an urgent phone call or a scheduled outbound call at their convenience. What you don’t want is to spend 20 minutes searching through the frequently asked questions and then another 20 minutes finding a customer service telephone number.”

Digital loyalty is effectively achieved through more personalised and omnichannel [experiences], but fundamentally it won’t work just with technology; it has to have an emotional connection with the customer

Educating customers was also high up on the list for Dr Alice Pan, global chief medical officer at Bima,a provider of health and insurance solutions for the emerging middle class in Asia and Africa. Digital technologies, she says, can not only support diagnosis and treatment of health conditions but also enable prevention and wellness promotion.

But there has been a learning curve for Bima as well. Lockdowns and the need for treatments led to Bima offering a telemedicine service in the last year, and the uptake has been incredible. “Our internal research shows that after the first use of telemedicine, the percentage of people selecting it as their preferred channel of accessing healthcare went from 5.8% to 58%,” she said. “It shows that trying something for the first time can shatter preconceptions.”

Be true to your purpose

Conny Kalcher, group chief customer officer at Zurich, identified a “major change” in what customers – especially younger generations – expect from organisations. “They want to buy from brands that do good, not just [those] doing well in business,” she said. When Kalcher took up her new role at the global insurance firm in July 2019, she updated the company’s purpose to be more ambitious and less self-interested.

“It was ‘we are here to protect you,’ but – guess what – all insurance companies are here to protect you,” she said. “It was not a unique message, so we co-created with customers to develop a new, inclusive purpose, which is ‘create a brighter future together.’ The younger parts of our customer base desire not just a brand purpose, but a sense of community. However, if you define your purpose, it’s not just nice words on a piece of paper; you have to live by that purpose.”

However, Dr Anthoula Madden, managing director of customer experience at Accenture, said the supposed digital divide between generations is narrowing. She pointed out that the pandemic triggered a 160% increase in ecommerce from “new or low-frequency users.” She said: “The generational gap around digital seems to be fading away, and more consumers of all ages are very comfortable with shopping online, especially using their smartphones.”

Research from Oviva supported this. Jones said: “I was surprised that 60% of customers across Europe will either mostly or only use a mobile phone for engaging in shopping and interacting with services such as healthcare; and it’s not just those under the age of 25, it’s across the board.”

Additionally, Madden encouraged businesses to invest in technology solutions, but do so in an agile way, testing and learning what might work best. “You need to be prepared to experiment. Fail fast. Just try it out, and if it doesn’t work, try something else.”

Value exchange: more choice and customer empowerment

For Stephen Gilbert, EMEA loyalty solutions director at Collinson, a company that offers loyalty programme solutions and owns airport lounge and experiences programme, Priority Pass, funding tech projects is not enough. He said: “Digital loyalty is effectively achieved through more personalised and omnichannel [experiences], but fundamentally it won’t work just with technology; it has to have an emotional connection with the customer.”

Gilbert added: “That’s the strategy piece you have to determine. There has to be a perceived value exchange between the customer and the brand. That is one of the keys to a loyalty programme.” But, he warned: “If organisations don’t see this as part of their branding and view it as digital marketing alongside a piece of technology, it will fail.”

What you don’t want is to ask people to remember the first, third and seventh digits of a passcode they have not used in years and leave them in a doom loop of password hell.

That insight resonated with Sue Bradley, director of customer experience delivery at Tui, the world’s largest leisure, travel and tourism company. Tui announced it was investing more in advertising to support the launch of the new ‘Live Happy’ campaign and to drive online sales. Bradley revealed the thoughts behind the recent ‘Live happy’ campaign.

“We wanted ‘Live happy’ to be inspirational,” said Bradley. “Tui offers a wide range of products, as well as the beach package holidays which we’re well known for, we also offer cities, tours cruises and ski. Our customers want to know that they are going to have fun when they go on holiday and at Tui, we help create those moments that make life richer. We also recognise the importance of experience. This week we launched the ‘Makers of happy,’ [referring to] our colleagues who make it memorable and personal for our customers.”

Tui has also released a new smartphone application to guide the customer journey. As well as being able to chat to the team 24/7, the app shows flight information, plus details about transfers including coach number and location. “It makes it far simpler,” said Bradley. “But what we found is more than ever, in this time of a global pandemic, people want that human touch.”

Reducing friction: beware the password doom loop

Integrating people into the digital experience was a key focus for most. Kalcher said: “A younger person might not want to talk to an agent, they prefer to find their own way, while other customers might need that personal assurance. So, it’s all about understanding your different customer segments and letting customers choose how to interact with the company.”

Smith concurred that empowering the customer is vital. But some brands miss the mark in this respect. “People often confuse ‘automation’ and ‘digital,’” he said. “They think that digital is a way to remove and automate processes, and it’s not. It can be hugely enabling, but there has to be that human need and human touch.

He added: “For example, if you have a healthcare app that provides the patient with all their details and data, they are empowered. But it doesn’t mean they want to be left alone.”

On the topic of friction, Lisa Scott, chief marketing officer of Banked, a global payments network “built on modern bank rails,” said the Strong Customer Authentication rules, introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority, has meant another layer of verification has slowed the online purchase process in the financial services industry – and perhaps that is no bad thing. The frustration, though, is that there are so many methods of secondary authentication across various apps.

“Do you want that additional verification to be an SMS message notification,” she asked. “Could it be something like your fingerprint or facial recognition? If they can make it simple and quick, and thereby reduce friction, then that’s good. What you don’t want is to ask people to remember the first, third and seventh digits of a passcode they have not used in years and leave them in a doom loop of password hell.”

Direction of travel: be cleverer with data use

Looking at how CX might develop in the coming years, Ashish Bhardwaj, senior solutions architect at Informa, emphasised the importance of data. Make sure you gather customer data and compliment it with secondary data,” he said. “You can personalise experiences and make relevant, proactive suggestions for the customer. The use of data and the tone in which it is communicated should be a careful choice from the marketing and communications teams.”

Madden confessed to being a “big fan” of the John Lewis app. “It’s amazing,” she said. “It shows your loyalty card, all your receipts, and it’s quite personalised. As long as I can see some value in engaging with that brand, then I will do so, but if you are a brand that keeps bombarding me with meaningless emails, I will block you.”

Looking further ahead, Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, CEO of Patients Know Best, predicted that sustainability could – and should – feature more prominently in CX, for the greater good. He said of COP26 that he sensed a groundswell of public demand for greater environmentally friendly processes.

Al-Ubaydli said: “When I consider the next 10 years in healthcare, the big question is: with an ageing population, how can you continue to deliver universal coverage? Everyone’s talking about not having enough money to help, but even if there was enough money, there are not enough professionals to look after everyone. The only solution is digital. If a person obtains their test results and knows what to do, it avoids clogging up an appointment with the doctor.

With the COP26 refrain of “keep 1.5 alive” possibly still ringing in his ears, Al-Ubaydli suggested that the desire to embrace digital solutions would be much greater in 20 years, as patients strive for more sustainable – and less wasteful – healthcare. “If we want to be able to afford universal coverage structurally, then you must allow people to have the medical data to look after themselves.”

He added: “About 5% of the vehicles on the UK’s roads are related to the National Health Service. Indeed, 5% of carbon emissions in the developing world are healthcare-related. So, if you can prevent the need to travel, stop the need for operations and so on, that is a serious contribution to reducing carbon. By protecting the patient, you protect the healthcare system, and ultimately you protect the planet.”

Clearly, environmental concerns are one more factor to add to the already complicated world of digital CX, which has undergone incredible evolution in the last couple of years, spurred by the coronavirus fallout. Customers are increasingly demanding, but organisations that fail to keep pace will see brand engagement and loyalty melt away.

This article, sponsored by Vonage, was first published on Raconteur in November 2021