In this period between Christmas and New Year, it is always interesting, albeit maybe a little self-indulgent but ’tis the season, to look a little in the rearview mirror over the year that was.
So here are some of the themes and stories that you have found most interesting* in 2022.
Freezers and Financial difficulties – I am not quite sure why this headline caught the imagination but somehow it did and reflected on the small observations that we can make, even whilst shopping at Tesco and what this means for the wider economy. This time the state of the economy and the increasing stress that consumers are under, shown in a behavioral change. Post here
Ukraine war – This started less than a year ago, is still continuing. The invasion was shocking, still is today and has changed the global economy, not least with energy pricing. Let’s hope this resolves soon. Post here
Energy prices – Linked to the war in Ukraine. With much of our lives based around energy – food production, heating, and transport – this has been a dominant theme. It is now also impacting us with inflation too. There is some hope this will moderate in 2023, however, the next couple of months over winter in the northern hemisphere are going to no doubt be a challenge for many. Something to continue to watch closely. Post here
Digital Cultural changes – A switch to largely digital processes has been continuing to build. How we interact and build relationships with customers is clearly changing and there is plenty of development in this space too. More here
Digital Contact channel effectiveness – Digital contact, a key theme throughout the pandemic, picked up momentum and continued into 2022. We ran a survey on digital collections and how this can be optimized.. Some interesting themes on digital channels moving up the rankings, although telephony is still not finished. Post here… (feel free to complete the survey for the results 🙂 )
Digital Affordability assessment – Some of the latest areas of development in capturing I&E data also generated much interest…. A theme that will likely continue into 2023 no doubt. More here
Customer Journey Orchestration – Now we have all these channels thoughts are turning to how to fit them all together. Understanding how they interact with each other and across the customer journey is going to be important. This is a theme I would expect to be built upon next year. More here
MaPS announcement on Debt Advice funding – This announcement came as a bit of a surprise and as it changes future funding for Debt advice. It will likely have implications for the structure of the free debt advice sector in the UK as this rollout. One to watch closely next year. More here.
Income Maximisation – There is only so much trimming of expenses that can be done sometimes, and you have to look at the Income side of the equation in the I&E. Income Maximisation (to maximise benefits, and it is suprising how many people are actually eligible for support) is a key and growing theme in many sectors, now and likely into next year. More here.
Machine Learning – Still of interest. As our access to data increases is, so does our ability to process and usefully interpret the data. It’s also fascinating how techniques from other disciplines can be used in Collections… More here
Open Banking – A hot topic in previous years, it really felt like this is an area that started to mature and be adopted more widely this year. Areas such as payments and VRP seem to be taking off and really embedding financial payments into processes. More here
Phew, what a year… although definitely some common themes… What does all this mean for 2023… something to think about this week.
Have a good week everyone.
* with apologies to those posted more recently… some great stories here too including
- The growing needs around debt advice
- Is it time to look again at pre-arrears again?
- The end of telephone calls – developments in chat and messaging
- The limits of digital collections – what is the best approach for implementation
And, of course, all other articles and opinion pieces too.
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