Getting through to someone who can help is causing financial services customers the most frustration, according to the latest Institute of Customer Service report.

Capita’s white paper explores how focusing on empathy, kindness and sincerity will equip organisations to help their most vulnerable customers.

The consumer desire for a brighter Christmas amidst continuing Covid-19 restrictions has seen a sharp rise in ‘buy now pay later’ schemes, and with furlough ending and depression rates rising, a perfect storm lies ahead for all collections teams as consumers juggle multiple payment demands.

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.

Christmas may well have come early in the FCA’s Consumer Duty feedback and consultation paper with more meaningful proposals for firms in the pursuit of delivering benefits for consumers. There’s not much detail in the underpinning cost/benefit analysis, but with only a nine-month implementation timescale, the New Year may well bring a costly hangover if firms aren’t preparing now.

Is your organisation ready for human-centred collections?

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

As a market leader in debt management, we are witnessing first-hand the devastating financial impact Covid-19 is having on the personal finances of so many people.

Can debt really be considered good? And do we need more of it? At Tortoise Media’s recent ‘The Future of Money’ event I was invited to consider this alongside finance coach and author of Black Girl Finance, Selina Flavius, and the co-author of Angrynomics, Eric Lonergan.