Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 2026

1. Introduction

RZ Consulting is committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about how we use it.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and your rights under UK data protection law.

This policy applies to all individuals who visit our website, enquire about our services, or engage with us as clients.

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, please contact us using the details below.

2. Contact Details

The data controller is Raqib Zarif, trading as:

RZ Consulting
23 Colmore Row
Birmingham
B3 2BS
United Kingdom

Privacy enquiries: [email protected]
General enquiries: [email protected]
Website: rzconsulting.uk

RZ Consulting is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under registration number ZC266995.

3. What Personal Information We Collect and Why

3.1 Enquiries and Business Onboarding

Name and contact details (email, phone number)
Business name and details
Branding assets and business information provided during onboarding
Compliance and consent information required to configure your systems

3.2 Booking and Scheduling

Name, email address, phone number and business name provided when booking a discovery call
Appointment date and time, and your preferred call format (video or telephone)
The video call link or telephone number used for the call
Confirmation and reminder messages sent to you by email and SMS
Whether the call took place or was missed

3.3 Client Account and Service Delivery

Business contact details and account credentials
Service and configuration history
Usage data relating to how your systems are performing

3.4 Payment Information

Billing name and contact details
Transaction and invoice history

Card and payment details are collected and processed directly by our payment processor. Where you engage us as a client, your card is stored securely by our payment processor so that monthly fees can be charged automatically, as agreed in your Client Service Agreement. RZ Consulting does not store your card details. See Section 8.

3.5 AI-Assisted Conversations

Where you interact with our AI-assisted tools, including our web chat and our telephone assistant, the content of those conversations is captured and stored. This is used to deliver the service you are interacting with, to maintain quality and accuracy, and to improve how our systems respond over time.

Our telephone assistant answers calls that we are unable to take ourselves. For these calls, we hold a written transcript and a short summary of the call, together with your telephone number and the date, time and duration of the call. At the start of each call, you are told that you are speaking with an automated assistant and that the call is transcribed.

3.6 Website Usage

Pages visited, time spent on pages and how you arrived at the website (for example, a referring website), recorded by our CRM and booking platform
Aggregated page-view statistics, collected without cookies
Your IP address and basic browser information, received by the providers that secure the website and deliver its fonts
Cookie data — see Section 10

4. Our Lawful Bases for Processing

Under UK data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for collecting and using your personal information.

4.1 Enquiries, Onboarding, and Service Delivery

We rely on Contract and Legitimate Interests. Where you engage us as a client, processing your data is necessary to perform that contract. Where you enquire but haven't yet engaged us, we have a legitimate interest in following up to answer your enquiry.

4.2 Booking and Scheduling

We rely on Contract and Legitimate Interests to manage appointments you request with us.

4.3 Client Accounts and AI-Assisted Conversations

We rely on Contract and Legitimate Interests. We have a legitimate interest in capturing conversation data from AI-assisted tools to ensure the service functions correctly, to resolve issues, and to improve accuracy — this is limited to what's necessary for those purposes and protected by access controls.

Calls answered by our telephone assistant are transcribed on the same basis, so that we can act on your message accurately, review the quality of the assistant's responses and resolve any question about what was said. Should you prefer that your call is not transcribed, you may end the call and contact us by email or text message instead.

4.4 Payment Processing

We rely on Contract to process payment information necessary to deliver paid services.

4.5 Marketing Communications

Where you have enquired about our services or booked a discovery call, we may send you a follow-up message about our services. We do so on the basis of our Legitimate Interests and as permitted by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) for similar products and services. Every such message includes a clear and free way to opt out, at rzconsulting.uk/unsubscribe or by replying to us.

If you opt out, we will stop sending marketing messages. Messages relating to an enquiry, booking or contract you have with us, such as confirmations, reminders and invoices, will continue. Where we rely on your Consent for any other marketing, you may withdraw it at any time.

4.6 Website Analytics

We rely on Legitimate Interests to understand how visitors find and use our website and to associate enquiries with the visit that led to them. How this information is stored on your device is explained in our Cookie Policy.

5. Your Data Protection Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

Right	What it means
Access	Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
Rectification	Ask us to correct or update inaccurate or incomplete information
Erasure	Ask us to delete your personal data in certain circumstances
Restrict Processing	Ask us to limit how we use your data
Object	Object to processing based on legitimate interests
Data Portability	Ask us to transfer your data to another organisation, or to you directly
Withdraw Consent	Where we rely on consent, withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing

We will respond to all data rights requests within one calendar month of receipt.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected].

For full details of each right and any exemptions that may apply, visit ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.

6. Where We Obtain Your Personal Information

We collect personal information directly from you — via our website forms, booking system, email, telephone, or during the delivery of our services. We do not purchase or obtain your data from third-party marketing lists or brokers.

7. How Long We Retain Your Information

Data Type	Retention Period
Financial records and invoices	6 years from the end of the financial year in which they were created (HMRC requirement)
Active client data	For the duration of our contract, plus 90 days to allow for account offboarding
Enquiries, leads, and closed prospects	Up to 24 months from your last contact with us
Support correspondence	Up to 24 months from resolution of the matter
Transcripts and summaries of calls answered by our telephone assistant	As for enquiries — up to 24 months from your last contact with us (or, for clients, as for active client data)
Website visit information linked to an enquiry	As for enquiries — up to 24 months from your last contact with us
Marketing opt-out records	For as long as necessary to ensure we continue to respect your preference

Contract duration includes any applicable minimum term and notice period.

After each retention period, data is securely and permanently deleted from our systems.

8. Who We Share Your Information With

We use the following categories of trusted data processors to deliver our services:

Cloud CRM and Marketing Automation Platform

(Software-as-a-Service | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Provides our core CRM infrastructure — securely stores your data, manages communication pipelines, hosts website forms, handles automated delivery of emails, SMS and calendar scheduling, and provides the AI features behind our web chat and telephone assistant, including call transcription.

Communications Infrastructure Provider

(Telecommunications / SaaS | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Routes SMS and voice communications sent and received through our systems on our behalf.

Payment Processor

(Financial Services | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Securely processes payments, issues invoices, and manages billing on our behalf. RZ Consulting does not directly store your card details.

Business Email, Calendar and Video Call Provider

(Software-as-a-Service | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Hosts our business email, calendar and video calls, including the video call links used for discovery calls, and stores correspondence you send to us.

Website Security and Performance Provider

(Infrastructure / Software-as-a-Service | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Protects our website against automated and malicious traffic, including security checks on our forms, manages our domain's DNS, and provides aggregated, cookie-free page-view statistics.

Website Font Providers

(Content Delivery | Location: UK / EU / USA)
Deliver the fonts used on our website. They receive your IP address and basic browser information when a page loads.

Other Recipients

Professional or legal advisors, where required
Regulatory or law enforcement authorities, where legally obliged

We select processors that provide sufficient guarantees of data security and UK GDPR compliance, and they act only on our instructions. A list of the specific providers we use is available on request from [email protected].

9. International Data Transfers

Some of the service providers we use to deliver our services store or process personal information outside the United Kingdom, principally in the United States. Where this happens, we only transfer your information using one of the legal mechanisms recognised under UK GDPR:

UK-US Data Bridge — transfers to US providers certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, which the UK Government has recognised as providing an adequate level of protection.
International data transfer contracts — where a provider is not covered by the Data Bridge, or as an additional safeguard, transfers are governed by the International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, both approved for use in the UK and incorporated into that provider's data processing agreement. These legally require the provider to protect your information to UK standards.

In addition, our providers apply technical and organisational security measures to protect your information, including encryption of data in transit and at rest, and restricted access controls.

You are entitled to request details of the safeguards that apply to a particular transfer, including a copy of the relevant contractual clauses, by contacting us at [email protected].

10. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Essential cookies keep the website secure and working; functional items support our forms, booking calendar and chat; and analytics items, provided through our CRM and booking platform, record how visitors arrive at and use the website. A notice is shown on your first visit, and you can remove or block these technologies at any time through your browser settings.

For full details, see our Cookie Policy.

11. Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse. Access to personal data is restricted to authorised personnel on a need-to-know basis.

12. How to Raise a Concern or Complaint

If you have any concerns about how we handle your personal data, contact us in the first instance:
Email: [email protected]

We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and aim to resolve it within one calendar month.

If you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to lodge a complaint with:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint