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.

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.

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

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.

How does customer experience need to change, to acquire and retain new customers and ensure a profitable road to recovery?

You have a problem. Someone else has been talking to your customer. The likes of Amazon, Apple, Nordstorm – and the other gods of customer service have been educating your customer in what excellent looks and feels like.

Customer loyalty is the holy grail of brand. Less than a decade ago, consumers told marketing research company IPSOS MORI that they trusted certain household brands (Heinz, John Lewis, Walmart) more than the Government.

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.