Matthew Morris

Barclays

Customer Care Colleague | 03/2023 – 05/2025
Personal Banker | 05/2025 – Present

Key Responsibilities

Deliver outstanding customer service through face-to-face interactions, identifying customer needs and providing tailored banking solutions.

Support customers with current accounts, savings, ISAs, digital banking and everyday banking enquiries.

Complete customer identification, verification and due diligence in line with regulatory requirements.

Protect customers from fraud and financial crime by identifying risks and promoting safe banking practices.

Assist vulnerable customers and those experiencing sensitive life events, including bereavements.

Resolve complex customer enquiries while maintaining high standards of compliance and customer care.

Promote digital banking services and improve customer confidence through one-to-one support and Digital Support sessions.

Leadership & Development

Coach colleagues on banking systems, processes and customer service best practice.

Deliver branch huddles and knowledge-sharing sessions to support team development.

Act as a trusted source of guidance for colleagues on procedures and complex customer queries.

Work collaboratively across the branch to improve customer outcomes and support business objectives.

Career Progression

Customer Care Colleague

Delivered efficient counter and service support while building trusted customer relationships.

Assisted customers with cash transactions, account servicing and everyday banking needs.

Helped customers adopt digital banking services and self-service technology.

Developed strong knowledge of Barclays products, systems and regulatory requirements.

Built the skills and experience that led to promotion into the Personal Banker role.

Personal Banker

Took responsibility for conducting in-depth financial conversations and identifying customer needs.

Managed more complex customer enquiries, regulatory processes and referrals.

Increased involvement in colleague coaching, branch development and customer education.

Queen Mary University of London

MSc International Public Policy - Merit

Modules Completed: Implementation and Evaluation, Theories of Policy Making Process, International Public Policy: Concepts and Practice, Globalisation and the International Political Economy of Development.

Dissertation: South-South Cooperation: An analysis of agricultural knowledge-transfer implementation influencing smallholder food losses. An analysis utilising the case of Kenya and Ghana.

Over 10 years Customer Service Experience as a Supervisor and General Merchandise Assistant at a busy Sainsbury's superstore in North London.

Currently I am in the process of learning French to fluency (C2) with the Institut Français, this will be followed by German, once C2 level has been achieved with French. Throughout my work and academic career, I have shown that I have an innate abilty to learn and adapt quickly, with a excellent attention to detail.

Able to communicate effectively when working within a team or dealing with clients. The extensive experience above displaying, an excellent record of deliverance in customer facing roles with my years of experience in retail.

Continually seeking to advance my knowledgebank by taking FutureLearn courses and attending events. Always seeking self-improvement, particularly on topics regarding Politics or Economics. The certificates I have attained can be viewed below. One notable course taken was Right vs Might in International Relations provided by the University of Glasgow. This increased knowledge of international law and legal responses to terrorism significantly by the end of this course.

Expertise in Customer Service

I have over 10 years of experience working in a busy environment. I am currently a supervisor at Sainsbury's and my role is to ensure an efficient checkout process whilst making sure exceptional customer service is delivered on over 30 tills.

When a customer failed a partial trolley rescan, which required a full trolley rescan at the smartshop tills. Simultaneously, I was alerted by a colleague who was working on a till, that there was a spillage at another till at the other end of the store. Effective prioritisation is crucial, as spillages and broken glass are hazardous and is something the company can be held liable for. There is a procedure which must be followed to prevent injury to others.

Making sure the hazard identification policy was followed, I collected a "wet floor" sign and made my way to the spillage, whilst using my work phone to summon the in-store janitor. All the while, remembering the customer at the smartshop requires a full rescan. When I returned to the smartshop checkout area, I was informed by my colleague that the customer was angry and was becoming rude. I apologised to the customer for keeping them waiting, telling them what had happened and I listened to what they had to say. I explained to the customer that I will open a till especially for them, so that their shopping would be processed quickly and efficiently.

I called a colleague to open a till and the customer was satisfied that they did not have to join a queue at a busy checkout and they composed themselves. The hazard was also dealt with promptly and safely adhering to Sainsbury's policy.

Expertise in Research

Whilst attending and participating in events during my Masters in International Public Policy, I became interested in many facets of UK and international political and economic debates. I am particularly passionate about behavioural policies and the end stages of the policy process, the implementation stage.

This lead to my authoring of research articles where I researched and summarised complex issues with accuracy and at speed. Examples are; the closure/lack of investment of rail infrastructure and the effect it has had on inequality for local people, more recently I have conducted research into behavioural policies in order to increase rail patronage and food security and inequality.

Research

• Researched various approaches to the policy process; top-down, bottom-up policy implementation and at ‘street-level’ where policy implementation is in the hands of citizens and where discretion or principal-agency is a significant feature
• Analysed qualitative and quantitative data. Making the case that brief and unexpected events can establish a platform for disadvantaged, or disempowered groups to advance a policy issue
• Another of my research interests is that of the environment and food security
• My topic of focus throughout my masters dissertation was: food losses on smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which consists of some of the highest post-harvest losses (PHL) in the world.

Teamwork and Leadership

• Whilst studying International Public Policy, I undertook a task that, involved working as part of a group and individually, discussing targets in the evaluation of public policy


• Under my leadership I directed the team to answer our assigned question, “what are the strengths and limitations of targets in the public sector?”


• Concluding that with the rise of New Public Management in many EU countries, demand for financial auditing and targets increased. The team concluded that although targets has its advantages (this can be clearly seen in the UK), the direct and indirect disadvantages can be significant, as was the case with the Grenfell Tower Fire.

Active Listening and Social Perceptiveness

• Attended a panel on behavioural public policy and administration. Discussing how a decade after Thaler and Sunstein’s seminal publication “Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness” (2008) research on nudging as a policy instrument has progressed


• A presentation was delivered by Van Deun et al., in Cardiff, who delivered their paper “Nudging in Public Policy and Public Management: A scoping review of the literature”


• Engaged with the speaker Ellen Fobé, asking what percentage of the studies in the scoping review mention the desired outcomes of nudge policies, which is often neglected from most nudge literature.

Innovation

• As Managing Director of Novenet Limited I identified a gap in the market and subsequently created a unique service for our brand The MonkeyPC, called MonkeyCare. This provided a service to clients less technically able or with time constraints


• This service provided clients with their own domain and blog set-up in minutes. Becoming the first hosting company to support clients post-software installation with code edits, and software upgrades


• Having researched the costs of independent developers, and calculating what would be profitable for the brand I set a price. The service was then successfully implemented, for just one flat monthly fee


• The new service resulted in sign-ups for the service by clients of The MonkeyPC and also those who were hosted elsewhere. The service enticed clients to sign up for our Gorilla package. Which included the Premium MonkeyCare service.

Enjoy keeping up to date with technology. Interests include history, languages, and staying up to date with news and politics both nationally and internationally. Also enjoy watching Formula One, playing badminton, and go-karting.

Leadership

Working in a small team grown out of a hobby

Working in computing before I started my company, focusing on computer repairs, small network set-up and virus removals. Founded my own webhosting company Novenet Limited, which ran a webhost and politics forums. Recently finished a design in partnership with someone else, and write on my own personal blog when I can (often on political/economic topics).