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’.

There can be no doubt the pandemic has altered the emotional make-up of society. Collectively, we are now much more aware of the suffering of others – and how could we not be after seeing lives turned upside down and businesses upended with no sense of rhyme or reason or equity.

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.

You don’t have to be involved in collections to be aware that the last 18 months have affected the financial circumstances of a huge number of people.

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

While technology offers many opportunities to deliver a more proactive and efficient customer experience, it’s the human interactions between brands and their customers that often make the difference.

A popular online brokerage prided itself on building a customer experience that made trading stocks as easy as swiping right or left to purchase a book online.

There have been enormous advances in the scale and availability of data, which is essential for machine learning.

Research done over the past few years has shown that having people of different genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages and physical and mental abilities within your organisation is good for all sorts of things from innovation and creativity to engagement and retention.

Automation will transform most jobs in the insurance sector over the next decade.