Coaching-based supervision in consumer protection
The purpose of coaching-based supervision is to promote the abilities of businesses to act in accordance with the law.
Sometimes businesses do not intentionally engage in unlawful operations, but they fail to pay attention to the requirements of consumer protection due to, for example, insufficient knowledge or misunderstandings. Such businesses are eligible for coaching-based supervision offered by the Consumer Ombudsman.
Coaching-based supervision is used to either prevent or correct problems. Furthermore, the goal is to motivate businesses to comply with consumer protection regulations on their own initiative and help them understand that investing in consumer protection also benefits their business activities.
Target groups and methods of coaching-based supervision
The Consumer Ombudsman offers coaching-based supervision for target groups of different types and sizes, including the following:
- SMEs, self-employed persons without employees, and large enterprises
- start-ups and established businesses
- trade associations
- developers of new products and services
- marketing and advertising designers.
The foundation of coaching-based supervision is identifying the needs of the target group. Consequently, the process is designed to incorporate approaches and methods which the businesses will find useful.
When selecting the supervisory methods and planning the relevant measures, it is important to consider how well the different target groups already know the basics of consumer protection and how motivated they are to adopt new operating methods.
The Consumer Ombudsman may cooperate with the target group or authorities when planning the coaching-based supervision. The methods are continuously developed further based on feedback received from, for example, the target groups.
The possible supervision methods and channels include, among others, the following:
- online service content such as checklists and decision paths
- Consumer Ombudsman’s guidelines
- Consumer Ombudsman’s instructions and recommendations for the sector
- standard terms and conditions negotiated by the Consumer Ombudsman
- industry meetings
- promotion of self-regulation and co-regulation
- cooperation campaigns
- press releases
- social media
- newsletters
- blogs
- media visibility
- webinars
- training events
- learning assignments on FCCA Kampus.