Inflation in Britain is at its highest in 30 years, having risen to 5.4% in the 12 months to December 2021 and it is expected to reach 7% by the spring, according to the Bank of England.

One of the things that caught my eye in the Institute of Customer Services UK’s (UKSCI) most recent report on customer satisfaction was the suggestion that a growing number of customers are prepared to pay more for improved service.

Companies today are dealing with an increasing range of vulnerable customers and should remember that seemingly small changes can have a significant impact.

Against a backdrop of varying policy support and shifting funding commitments, the rise of empowered communities across the UK is even more notable.

It doesn’t seem too long ago that the introduction of interactive voice response (IVR) received a rocky reception with many customers citing that they preferred to speak to a ‘real human’.

Energy Day at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) was dominated by the message: ‘consign coal to history’.

The second year of the pandemic has seen more people in the UK slide further into debt and organisations need to recalibrate their response through empathetic collections.

Treating customers with empathy has been an increasingly important area of focus within the customer experience industry.

Since January 2021, global market forces and, more recently, soaring natural gas prices have forced no fewer than 14 smaller energy suppliers to cease trading.

The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated very clearly that “human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe”.