As we’ve mentioned in a previous article, 2021 saw smaller UK energy suppliers cease trading and exit the market at an unprecedented rate.

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.

Telecoms organisations face a highly challenging business environment as digitisation continues to fuel the relentless disruption of established business models and practices, to enable increasing competition from new, more agile, entrants and forces constant regulatory changes as the market grapples with the societal shift to living and conducting business online.

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.

Retail technology is perhaps one of the fastest growing industries coming out of the pandemic, with digitisation being one of the key aspects of this transformation.

As corporate customers are presented with more choice, telecommunication providers (telcos) need to look for opportunities to present themselves as strategic partners for business critical solutions, beyond the standard offering of connectivity.