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In 2026, switching providers only takes a few minutes, and comparison sites turn your brand into a line item on a leaderboard. Customer loyalty has become the defining challenge for brands in regulated sectors. 

To dive into this topic, we brought together senior leaders from Smarty Mobile, Confused.com, So Energy, and the DMA for a panel event exploring why loyalty is eroding, what the data reveals about the cost of this crisis, and why, if brands want true loyalty from their customers, they need to show it first. 

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Stop the Switch

The panel event explored the findings and insights we uncovered in our latest industry report, Stop the Switch, which examines the loyalty crisis facing telecoms and utilities brands, with actionable strategies and real-world examples of effective retention campaigns. 

In 2025 alone, 1.6 million UK customers switched their landline or broadband provider. In energy, over 345,000 customers switch provider every single month. That’s one switch every 75 seconds. This is happening at scale, across every regulated sector.  

Download Stop the Switch to explore the full data and practical strategies for building customer loyalty.

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The Scale of the Problem

Ian Gibbs, Head of Data and Insights at the DMA, opened the session by presenting findings from the DMA Effectiveness Databank that lay bare the retention crisis facing telecoms and utilities brands. The data tells a clear story: marketing in these sectors has become exceptionally good at winning customers but not as good at keeping them. 

For telecoms brands, marketing drives a +32% uplift in acquisition but -27% in retention. For utilities, it’s +29% acquisition, -13% retention.  

But why is that difference so costly? Retention marketing consistently delivers higher ROI than acquisition, and campaigns that achieve long-term customer loyalty are four times more likely to generate positive business outcomes. There is a clear opportunity for retention marketing to deliver high returns on investment, yet that opportunity is being missed.

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Are We Buying Churn?

Richard Robinson, General Manager of Insights at Confused.com, asked the question that cuts to the heart of the issue:

“Are we buying churn?” 

When acquisition strategies are optimised purely on price, brands attract customers who are already conditioned to switch. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle: the most price-sensitive customers arrive, enjoy the introductory offer, then leave as soon as a better deal appears elsewhere. The comparison site ecosystem has made this behaviour frictionless, and brands have trained customers to expect it. 

But Robinson’s point wasn’t to blame the platforms. It was to challenge brands to look inward. If you’re optimising for volume and price at acquisition, you’re also expecting disloyalty from day one. Comparison sites have made the switching behaviour visible, but what matters is whether brands are using that insight to rethink who they’re acquiring and how they’re treating them once they arrive. 

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Loyalty is Reciprocal 

Beckie Smith, Head of Customer Communications at Smarty Mobile, explained a principle that’s easy to state but difficult to execute:

“As a brand you need to say what you do but also do what you say.” 

Your brand values can’t just live in your marketing. They have to show up in the very first interaction a customer has with you, and every single one after that, from the welcome email, to the service call and the renewal notice. If these touchpoints don’t reinforce what you claim to be, they will expose the gap instead. 

Smith’s point about reciprocal loyalty speaks to something deeper: customers want consistency more than they want perfection. If you say you’re simple and honest, be simple and honest, not just in your ad campaign, but in the contract terms, the pricing structure, and the way complaints are handled. Loyalty is built on whether brands deliver on the promise they make in their marketing when it actually matters.

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Quality Over Volume

Michael Campbell, Marketing Director at So Energy, reframed the challenge:

“It’s about encouraging the right type of customers to stay for longer.” 

Some customers will churn regardless of what you do when they’re inherently price-driven and constantly scanning for better deals. Others will stay if you give them a reason. The mistake many brands make is treating acquisition as a volume game, optimising for cost-per-acquisition without considering lifetime value or propensity to stay. 

Campbell’s view is that retention starts at acquisition. If you’re selecting customers based purely on who will convert cheapest and fastest, you’re building a base designed to churn. But if you’re identifying signals at sign-up, like engagement behaviours, channel preferences, and stated needs, you can start to predict who’s worth investing in and tailor retention efforts accordingly. 

It’s a shift from “how many customers can we acquire” to “which customers should we acquire, and how do we make sure we keep them?”

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Spotting the Signals 

Beckie Smith returned to a critical operational point:

“What’s the least amount of data you need to know to make a decision?” 

Brands often drown in data without acting on it. Churn prediction models sit unused and segmentation strategies become so complex they’re never implemented. The intent is there, but the execution falters because teams are paralysed by the volume of signals available. 

Her advice was clear: identify the handful of indicators that actually predict loyalty, and act on them. Is it how customers first engaged? Whether they’ve contacted support in the first 30 days? How quickly they set up a direct debit? The specific signals will vary by sector and brand, but the principle holds: don’t wait for perfect data. Spot the patterns early and intervene. 

This ties back to Campbell’s point about acquisition quality. If you know that customers acquired through certain channels, or with certain characteristics, are more likely to stay, you can weight acquisition spend toward those segments. And if you know that certain behaviours in the first 90 days predict churn, you can design onboarding and early-lifecycle engagement to address them.

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The Path Forward 

The conversation kept returning to one idea: passive loyalty is gone. The friction that once kept customers in place has been dismantled by technology, regulation, and competitors built around making switching simple. 

So what replaces it? 

Active, reciprocal loyalty. Brands that treat existing customers as well as they treat prospects. Brands that acquire customers with an eye to retention, not just conversion. Brands that act on early signals rather than waiting until customers are already halfway out the door. 

The DMA data makes the commercial case unambiguous. Retention delivers better ROI. Long-term loyalty drives four times the business impact. But the insight from this panel event is that earning that loyalty requires brands to show it first, in pricing, in service, in how they allocate marketing spend, and in who they choose to acquire in the first place.

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Download the full Stop the Switch report for in-depth analysis, real-world case studies, and practical strategies to elevate customer loyalty in telecoms and utilities.

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We recently announced our acquisition of a proven SMS and mobile messaging solution, Textplode, bringing more advanced infrastructure, best-in-market pricing, and a new generation of messaging capability directly into our offering. 

With this acquisition marks the arrival of something exciting to our mobile messaging offering: Rich Communication Services (RCS). So, what is RCS, how does it work in practice, and why does it represent such a significant step forward for businesses looking to drive growth through mobile messaging?

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The Natural Next Step

SMS has earned its place as one of the most dependable channels in business communications. Its high open rates, instant read speeds, and reliable response rates speak for themselves. But there’s always been a limit to what plain text can do when you compare it to the rich media available across other channels.

RCS is the industry’s upgrade to the strong foundation of SMS. Delivered via the same channel, the result feels instantly recognisable to customers, yet has the richness and interactivity of a modern digital experience.

Business are now equipped with a significantly more powerful set of tools to communicate, engage, and convert, and the performance uplift is significant. RCS messages are 35 times more likely to be read than email, according to Google and the Mobile Ecosystem Forum. They can also deliver up to 7 times more click-throughs than SMS, based on Sinch benchmarks.

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What Makes an RCS Message Different

Where an SMS arrives as a line of plain text, an RCS message arrives as a fully branded experience, directly in the same native messaging app your customers already use and are almost guaranteed to check.

Here’s what that experience can include:

Verified sender identity:

Your brand name and logo appear alongside every message, verified so customers know with certainty who they’re hearing from. In an era of growing scrutiny around mobile communications, that visible trust signal has never mattered more. 

Rich media, natively delivered:  

Previously, you would have had to link to any media format you wanted your audience to see, but now images, videos, and GIFs can be embedded directly within the message, present in the conversation itself, creating a richer, more immersive customer experience that drives engagement without friction. 

Interactive buttons and carousels:  

RCS transforms every message into a CTA. Buttons drive any action, triggering a call, opening a URL, confirming a booking. 

Carousels take it further, turning the message thread into a browsing experience where users swipe through products, offers, or services without ever leaving. This swipeable, visual format is discoverable, engaging, and removes every step between interest and action. 

Read receipts and delivery confirmation:

RCS gives you a clearer picture of how your messages are performing. You can see when a message has been delivered and when it has been read, insight that SMS doesn’t offer, and that makes a real difference to how you measure and optimise campaigns. 

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How It Works For You and Your Customers

For your customers, the experience is seamless. A message arrives in their usual messaging app, looking and feeling like a branded, interactive communication rather than a plain text. There’s nothing new to learn and nothing new to install. 

For your business, getting started is equally straightforward. MBA Group manages the technical onboarding, brand verification and campaign delivery from end to end. You don’t need to navigate complex integrations or build new platform relationships, just focus on the message you want to say, and we handle how it gets there. 

RCS isn’t here to replace SMS. The two channels serve different purposes and work best together. SMS remains unmatched in reach, reliability and simplicity, and RCS is the layer you add when the situation calls for something richer. That could be a product launch, a customer onboarding journey, or a high-value promotional campaign where interaction and brand experience are essential to the message. 

This is why RCS sits so naturally within MBA Group’s offering of wider multichannel communications. Rather than managing separate providers for separate channels, our clients have access to both through a single trusted partner. 

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Find Out More

RCS adoption is growing fast in the communications industry. As the channel matures, it’s becoming an essential part of the mobile messaging toolkit. Deliver elevated, app-style experiences to your existing audience, without the usual barriers, and with results you can measure. 

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If you’d like to understand how RCS could work for your business’ communications,

Get in touch here. 

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Our acquisition of Textplode was featured in PrintWeek — read the full story here.

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Mobile messaging has long been a key part of how we help clients connect with their customers, and as specialists in data-led, multi-channel customer engagement, we’ve just made a significant move to strengthen it. 

We’ve acquired a proven SMS and mobile messaging solution, Textplode, bringing more advanced infrastructure and technology directly into our existing communications ecosystem. 

For our clients, this means better pricing, greater delivery confidence, and access to a new generation of messaging capability with the addition of RCS to our offering, all through the same, single trusted partner.

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Why Mobile Messaging Still Matters 

SMS remains one of the most reliable and instant communication channels available to businesses. Open rates consistently outperform email, sitting at around 98% [1], compared to roughly 20–25% for email. SMS also reaches customers directly, with 90% of messages read within three minutes of receipt [2], and lands in their hands without the barriers of algorithms, inbox filters, or download forms. For large-scale and time-sensitive communications it remains the channel businesses depend on to deliver. 

Response rates tell a similar story as SMS averages 45%, against just 6% for email [3]. And in 2025, texting officially overtook email as the preferred way for consumers to reach customer service [4], a telling shift that reflects just how central mobile messaging has become to everyday life and business communication. 

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Where It Makes A Difference  

Across sectors, SMS is embedded in multiple key touchpoints in customer journeys, such as appointment reminders in healthcare, booking confirmations in hospitality, and fraud alerts in financial services. Retail profits from the channel too, with nearly three quarters of consumers having made a purchase directly because of a brand text message [5]. The impact on returns is just as striking, as businesses report up to £55 for every £1 spent on SMS marketing [6], and 82% agree it is an effective driver of revenue [7]. 

The simplicity and effectiveness of plain-text messaging mean it will always have its place, but the ability to go further, when the situation calls for it, is increasingly where the real competitive advantage lies. That’s exactly what this acquisition enables.

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More Value in Every Message

For our customers, one of the most immediate benefits of this investment is commercial. We’ve secured best-in-market SMS pricing, meaning maximum value on every message sent, and whatever volume you operate. 

This acquisition also marks the arrival of something new to MBA Group’s offering: RCS (Rich Communication Services). As the next generation of mobile messaging, RCS opens up a world beyond plain text of branded messages, images, interactive buttons and more, delivered straight to your customers’ default messaging app.

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The numbers that support RCS adoption are compelling. RCS click-through rates run at 15-20% compared to 4-7% for SMS [8], and enterprises are also reporting conversion increases of 8-10% when moving loyalty promotions from SMS to RCS [9]. It’s a channel that is growing fast, with global RCS business messaging predicted to reach 200 billion messages by 2029 [10], and it’s growing because the results already speak for themselves. 

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This acquisition significantly strengthens our mobile messaging offering, giving clients access to more robust infrastructure, enhanced capabilities, and more competitive pricing, all through a single, trusted partner with 40 years of expertise in data, creative and operational delivery. 

It’s a natural evolution, and one we expect clients will feel the benefit of quickly. 

Mobile messaging is only becoming more central to how businesses connect with their customers. We’re building to meet that, and making sure our clients are ready for it too. 

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Want to learn more about how mobile messaging can be implemented into your strategy? Get in touch here. 

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Our acquisition of Textplode was featured in PrintWeek — read the full story here.

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Sources:  

  1. Mobile Marketing Association, 2025 
  1. RedEye, 2024 
  1. Gartner 
  1. SimpleTexting, 2025 
  1. Infobip, 2025 
  1. Omnisend, 2025 (converted from USD) 
  1. SimpleTexting, 2025 
  1. TXTImpact, 2025 
  1. Mordor Intelligence, 2026 
  1. Juniper Research, 2024 

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We brought together senior leaders from some of the UK’s most renowned brands across switch-heavy industries at an exclusive roundtable hosted in partnership with the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) to discuss a pressing matter: the challenges of customer loyalty and what providers can do to combat the switching culture. 

Stop the Switch: How Brands Keep Customers Connected is a joint industry report by MBA Group and the DMA covering why customers are disconnecting, the real financial cost of churn, and what the most effective retention strategies look like in practice. 

Rather than basing the report solely on data and desk research, we wanted it to be informed by people working against these challenges day to day. The conversations were candid and honest, challenging each other’s assumptions and surfacing things that don’t always arise in formal research. Key quotes from the discussion are featured in the report, alongside analysis of over 1,700 data points from the DMA data bank including award-entered campaigns, survey responses and interviews. 

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If retention is on your agenda for 2026, download the report. 

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But first, here are the highlights from the roundtable. 

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The Damage of the Loyalty Penalty

Most people in the industry know the loyalty penalty exists. Rewarding new customers with better deals while existing ones quietly pay more has been a feature of utilities and telecoms pricing for years. What came through clearly in the room, though, was just how much damage this is doing to long-term trust, and how quickly it can end a relationship entirely. 

“Finding out new customers are paying less than existing customers doesn’t just result in an ‘I’m not happy’ moment; it’s actually an ‘I’m never coming back’ type of moment — because the perception is: why is that person more valuable to you than me, when I’ve been with you for six years?” 

– Ali Khan, Customer Analytics Advisor, Ex. WPP / Meta / Amazon

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There’s a reason this point lands so hard. For a long-term customer, discovering they’re paying more than a new joiner feels like a direct message that their loyalty counts for nothing. 

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The Financial Case Against Churn

It’s well known that acquisition efforts costs businesses much more than retention does. But the leaders in the room wanted to go further and talk about how churn impacts a business over time. 

“Every pound that you lose because of churn is almost two pounds you need to bring back in new business, just from a P&L perspective. Retention is absolutely the foundation of what we do.” 

– Richard Robinson, General Manager, Insight by Confused.com

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And the problem only gets harder the longer high churn continues. 

“The bigger the churn gets, the bigger the true cost gets as well, because you essentially reduce your addressable market. There’s a confirmation bias that builds: ‘I tried them, I didn’t like them, I won’t go back.’ That voice is now much more visible than it was 10–15 years ago.” 

– Michael Campbell, Marketing Director, So Energy

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Reviews, social posts, conversations in group chats. A dissatisfied former customer has more reach now than ever. The cost of losing someone isn’t just the revenue line, it’s the conversations you’ll never see but that are absolutely happening behind your back. 

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Loyalty, or Inertia?

Probably the most honest thread running through the roundtable was that a lot of what brands call loyalty is actually inertia. Many customers who haven’t switched aren’t loyal in any meaningful sense, they just haven’t got round to it yet. 

“We often see passive loyalty. Customers are loyal until something happens. It’s not an emotionally driven decision, it’s a condition-driven decision.” 

– Richard Robinson, General Manager, Insight by Confused.com

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The implication of this is uncomfortable but important. If customers are only staying because switching feels like hassle, then a single poor experience like a confusing bill, a price rise letter that lands badly, or a customer service call that goes nowhere, can be the thing that finally makes them switch. Years of adequate service won’t protect you from one bad moment if you haven’t built any real connection in between. 

Which is why the leaders who are thinking about this well are focusing on the relationship before the ultimatum, not after it. 

“If you understand your customers and what their next big investments are likely to be, you can start to nurture and bring them on that journey so that when the time comes for that big decision-making investment, they do it with you.” 

– Michael Campbell, Marketing Director, So Energy 

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The Market Has Changed

Switching friction, one of the few structural reasons customers stayed put, has been deliberately removed with the introduction of One Touch Switch. For leaders already operating in an intensely competitive market, that change has raised the stakes even more. 

“The telecoms sector was already an incredibly competitive one, with a wide range of products and deals available to the ultimate benefit of UK consumers. Now, following the introduction of One Touch Switch in our sector, it’s more important than ever for providers to adapt to keep meeting customers’ expectations.” 

– Hannah Brown, Head of Customer Communications, Virgin Media O2 

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And in that environment, the temptation to compete on promotional offers is understandable, but the evidence suggests it doesn’t always work. 

“When you’re trying to bring down churn, matching acquisition offers barely makes a dent. What matters is delivering on basic needs. Network quality, speeds, being able to call when you need to, access to data and transparency.” 

– Sharad Malik, Customer Engagement and Loyalty, Lyca Mobile

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Getting the fundamentals right before layering on loyalty programmes sounds obvious. In practice, plenty of businesses are still doing it the other way around. 

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Common Themes From the Room 

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“Customer segmentation used to be done quite traditionally based on age and socio-economic factors. What we’ve seen in recent times is it’s gone very behavioural, based on what you’re doing and how you’re behaving. An 18-year-old might be behaving exactly the same as someone in the 45 age group in terms of tech usage, so putting them in separate segments makes absolutely no sense. Now they’ll get grouped together based on behaviour, spending patterns, and usage. We have some segments that have nothing to do with spend at all – they’re based purely on interest.” 

 – Ali Khan, Customer Analytics Advisor, Ex. WPP / Meta / Amazon

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“Harnessing customer data gives brands a competitive edge, informing decisions from strategic direction through to campaign execution and measurement.” 

– Ian Gibbs, Insight and Planning Director, DMA

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Brand Substance Matters as Much as Brand Personality 

A lot of the conversation, understandably, was about data, price and service. But one of the more interesting threads was about what brand identity actually does for retention, and where it falls short on its own. 

“The major players have created strong brand identities from the beginning, different colours, distinct personalities, and customers became loyal to their choice. That mind share and consistent presence builds loyalty. But brands also need substance behind the personality: environmental commitments, ethical practices, what they truly stand for. Both layers matter.” 

– Louise Winch, Head of Customer Communications and Marketing, TalkTalk

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In a market where tariffs can look almost identical, a strong brand genuinely does help. But customers are increasingly good at spotting the gap between what a brand says it stands for and how it actually behaves. When that gap is visible, it becomes another reason to leave.

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What It Adds Up To

Taken together, the roundtable pointed to churn that is largely preventable, driven by broken trust, passive loyalty that was never properly nurtured, and a persistent tendency to prioritise new customers over existing ones.  

None of this is unfixable. But it does require businesses to take retention seriously as a strategic priority, with the data, the internal alignment, and the customer understanding to back it up, rather than treating it as something to address once acquisition starts to slow down. 

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This article draws on exclusive roundtable discussions hosted in partnership with the DMA, featuring senior leaders from across utilities, telecoms, and insurance.

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For the full analysis, including case studies from O2, EE, Power NI, SMARTY and more, download Stop the Switch: How Brands Keep Customers Connected:  

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How the youngest consumer generation is shaping markets, media, and meaning

We’ve become fluent in the language of generational marketing, understanding Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z in terms of behaviours, expectations, and the best ways organisations can connect with them.

But as we settle into 2026, a new cohort is moving into influence. Generation Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024, are not only entering the teen years but beginning to make economic and cultural impact. In 2026, the oldest Gen Alphas will turn 16. They’re opening bank accounts, making purchases, influencing family spending, and already shaping entire categories of consumption. But you’d be wrong to assume they’re simply “mini-Gen Zs”. Their formative years have been shaped by a unique mix of digital immersion, post-pandemic experiences and hyper-connected social environments that make them unique to any other cohort. 

In this article, we explore how Gen Alpha differs from other generations, unpack what the data says about their behaviours and expectations, and highlight what marketers and communicators should know to connect with them meaningfully and strategically. 

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Navigating generational flux? 

Our whitepaper, Shift Got Real, explores the evolving expectations of UK consumers from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, with actionable strategies to connect with them meaningfully. 

Download it here.

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Gen Alpha: A Distinct Consumer Cohort 

Gen Alpha’s consumer footprint is already noticeable. In the U.S. alone, children as young as 8–14 are reported to influence around 42% of total household spending, equating to over $100 billion in direct spending power, [DKC Analytics (2025)] mostly through decisions about food, entertainment and digital media subscriptions, and 91% are actively earning money through chores, online activity, or other small jobs.  

In the UK, Attest research finds that 94% of teens aged 15–16 have some form of savings, with 51% holding more than £1,000 and 11% sitting on over £10,000, including funds in trust. Nearly half hold traditional bank accounts, and 37% use digital banking products. This level of financial activity at relatively young ages proves how quickly this generation is becoming economically sophisticated, and why businesses need to adapt to them. 

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Redefining Digital Balance 

Gen Alpha’s media and consumption habits reflect a generation raised in a world where screens are the primary interface with information, entertainment, and social life. In the UK, 93% of Gen Alpha teens engage in gaming daily, and 39% spend over three hours a day gaming, surpassing TV and audio consumption, a significant shift from previous youth cohorts. [Ofcom. 2024] 

Across markets, research shows that gaming isn’t just passive entertainment. For Gen Alpha, gaming spaces are social hubs where friendships form, group chats start, and even early dating happens. Mario Party-style multiplayer experiences have seen an engagement rise of around 11% since 2021, blurring the line between digital and physical social activity. [Newzoo, 2023]

But Gen Alpha don’t always live online. Even as they are “digital first,” there’s evidence that this generation is recalibrating its relationship with screens. Post-pandemic tracking shows a gentle decline in overall device time as many teens take deliberate breaks, with 40% of 12–15-year-olds saying they take breaks from their devices, and a rise in offline behaviours like board gaming and physical toys. [Ofcom. 2024] 

This balanced digital-offline mosaic matters because it challenges the stereotype that Gen Alpha is tech-addicted; instead, they’re navigating digital life with nuance and, in many cases, more parental guidance than ever before. 

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Beyond the Screen: In-Person and Experiential Preferences 

Despite their deep engagement with technology, Gen Alpha still values real-world experiences. Research from retail and travel sectors indicates a strong preference for in-store shopping experiences, driven by hands-on exploration and social interaction with family, particularly in beauty and lifestyle categories.  

This preference extends to broader family decisions too. A Hilton travel survey found that 70% of parents with Gen Alpha kids let them significantly influence travel choices, from destinations to dining spots, reflecting not just consumption power but decision-making clout.  

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How Gen Alpha Differs from Gen Z 

It’s natural to assume that Gen Alpha will simply follow Gen Z, but emerging data suggests important contrasts: 

These differences stem partly from their upbringing: Gen Alpha is the first cohort to have had widespread access to tablets, AI tools and cross-device connectivity from early childhood.  

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What This Means for Marketers 

For communicators and brands, Gen Alpha presents both challenges and opportunities: 

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Preparing for Impact: Gen Alpha’s Influence 

As the oldest Gen Alphas enter mid-teens and begin forging adult consumer behaviours, their influence on spending, culture and brand expectations will only grow. This is a generation that experienced early digital fluency, pandemic disruption during critical developmental years, and parenting styles steeped in mindfulness and wellbeing, all of which shape their worldview, expectations and economic behaviours. 

If brands want to understand Gen Alpha, they’ll need to stop projecting old narratives onto a new audience. That means moving beyond stereotypes and recognising the distinct experiences and preferences that will shape markets for decades. Strategies grounded in data, and shaped by the realities of this generation, will be key to earning their attention, trust and loyalty. 

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Many organisations still treat vulnerable customers as a minority, yet vulnerability now affects a substantial and growing share of the customer base of up to 60% according to YouGov, 2025. When communication fails these customers, trust quickly erodes and the financial impact follows by missed payments, abandoned journeys, higher service costs and preventable churn, alongside wasted internal effort spent on communication that simply doesn’t work. 

Poor communication quickly becomes a material financial risk, especially when acquisition is so costly: 

 “In many regulated sectors, acquiring a new customer can cost hundreds of pounds once marketing, incentives and onboarding are factored in” – DMA, 2024 

This is why understanding hidden vulnerability is the key to unlocking ROI from every customer interaction. 

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Want to understand where this cost is hiding in your own customer journeys? 
Our report, The Retention Risk of Hidden Vulnerability, reveals how behavioural signals expose risk long before complaints or churn, and how smarter communication protects ROI. 

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The Immediate Cost of Poor Communication 

The financial impact of overlooking vulnerable customers shows up faster than many organisations realise. Communications that are unclear, poorly timed or too complex actively create cost rather than spreading the message that’s intended. 

When customers cannot understand or act on messages because of a hidden vulnerability, the result is disengagement. Missed payments, incomplete applications, stalled self-service journeys, the list goes on. In many organisations, each of these failures are often designed to trigger follow-up activity, but by the time you’ve gotten through to a customer, what should have been a single, efficient interaction becomes a costly chain of recovery activity. 

These costs scale rapidly. Messages that fail for even a small percentage of customers are multiplied across thousands of accounts and hundreds of journeys each year. Budget is spent producing and distributing communications that deliver little or no return, while operational teams absorb the downstream impact. 

At the same time, trust is quietly eroded. Customers who feel confused or overwhelmed disengage, ignore future communications or begin to perceive the organisation as difficult to deal with. This loss of confidence increases the likelihood of the biggest cost of them all, churn, turning communication failure into a direct revenue problem. 

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Churn Turns Communication Failure into Waste 

Churn is where the true cost becomes unavoidable. In many regulated sectors, acquiring a new customer can cost hundreds of pounds once marketing, incentives and onboarding are factored in (DMA, 2024). When customers leave due to preventable communication failures, those acquisition costs are an immediate waste. 

This is particularly damaging because the signals of churn are often hard to spot until it is too late. Customers do not always complain, instead they simply stop engaging and move to providers who feel clearer and less demanding. Replacing them requires fresh spend, while competitors benefit from customers you have already invested in acquiring and servicing. 

Retention, by contrast, has significantly higher ROI. When organisations lose customers due to confusion rather than competition, margins erode unnecessarily. The business ends up spending more to stand still, rather than improving outcomes for customers it already has. 

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Operational and Regulatory Costs Compound the Problem 

Beyond churn, overlooked vulnerability drives sustained operational inefficiency. Contact centres see higher volumes of avoidable calls. Digital journeys generate repeated failures. Teams spend time correcting misunderstandings rather than adding value. 

There is also increasing regulatory scrutiny. Regulators are placing greater emphasis on whether communications are designed in a way that customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances, can understand and act upon. Poorly designed communications that foreseeably disadvantage customers can lead to investigations, remediation programmes and fines, all of which carry significant cost and disruption. 

The combined impact is clear: wasted communication spend, higher operational costs, lost revenue and increased regulatory risk, all stemming from messages that fail to work for customers when they are least able to cope. 

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How Businesses Can Reduce Waste and Protect ROI 

Reducing this waste does not require entirely new channels or wholesale transformation. It just requires a shift in how organisations design and evaluate communication effectiveness. 

Practical, market-ready actions include: 

When communications are clearer, more supportive and easier to act on, engagement increases, avoidable additional contact falls and overall retention improves as a result. Addressing vulnerability therefore delivers measurable financial benefit as well as better customer outcomes.

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The Retention Risk of Hidden Vulnerability: Read the Report 

Overlooking vulnerable customers is a costly business failure. Misaligned communications waste budget, increase operational strain and accelerate churn at a time when acquisition costs continue to rise. 

Our full report, The Retention Risk of Hidden Vulnerability, explores how smart communication builds loyalty with vulnerable customers and outlines practical steps organisations can take to protect both customer trust and ROI. 

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FAQs 

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Why does overlooking vulnerable customers waste money? 

When customers cannot understand or act on communications, organisations incur avoidable costs through missed payments, abandoned journeys, increased contact centre demand and higher churn, turning communication spend into wasted budget. 

Who counts as a vulnerable customer? 

Anyone whose circumstances reduce their ability to engage with communications, including financial pressure, emotional stress, health issues, digital barriers or situational life events. Vulnerability is often temporary or fluid, changing from week to week or month to month, and affects many more customers than organisations realise. 

How does poor communication increase churn? 

Confusing and overwhelming communications erode trust. Customers disengage, ignore future messages and eventually switch providers, often without complaint, driving expensive and preventable churn. 

What is the regulatory risk of ignoring vulnerable customers? 

Regulators increasingly expect communications to be clear, accessible and supportive. Failures that disadvantage vulnerable customers can lead to investigations, remediation programmes, fines and reputational damage. 

How can organisations improve ROI by addressing vulnerability? 

By simplifying communications, monitoring engagement signals and adapting messages in real time. This reduces avoidable contact, improves retention and ensures communication budgets deliver measurable returns. 

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At MBA Group, we’re proud to announce that we have been re-awarded the JICMAIL Platinum Award for 2026, reaffirming our position as one of the UK’s leading organisations in data-driven direct mail. 

JICMAIL Platinum is the highest level of accreditation awarded by JICMAIL, the industry’s trusted audience measurement currency for mail. They recognise organisations that have fully embedded JICMAIL data into the way they plan, measure and evaluate mail campaigns, treating data rooted in accuracy as a core part of how they operate. 

Being named one of just 28 Platinum Partners for another year is a significant achievement for the group. It reflects the expertise across our teams and our continued commitment to using evidence and real-world behaviour to shape effective mail strategies for our clients. 

Behind every accreditation like this is a huge amount of work. From ongoing training and knowledge-sharing to consistently applying data-led thinking across campaigns and processes, this award is a testament to the dedication and capability of our people. It recognises access to data in action, measured by how confidently and consistently it’s applied to drive better outcomes. 

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The Value Behind the Accreditation 

In a crowded communications industry, direct mail continues to play a vital role when it’s planned and measured properly. JICMAIL provides robust insight into how mail is received, read and acted upon, enabling our business to make smarter and more informed decisions, with clearer measurement and greater accountability. 

For our clients, Platinum accreditation means: 

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Looking ahead 

We’re proud to continue our partnership with JICMAIL year on year and remain focused on pushing boundaries, sharing best practice and unlocking the full potential of data-led mail campaigns. 

This re-accreditation is both a milestone and a motivator, reinforcing our commitment to insight, transparency and delivering measurable value through every campaign we support. 

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Read the full JICMAIL announcement here.

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This year, our Christmas campaign, Connected at Christmas, celebrates the connections that matter most, both within our group and with the people we serve through our communication solutions. 

Our Christmas card brings the concept to life through illustrations by Shoreditch Sketcher Phil Dean, Founder of our creative agency, Studio Certain. Inspired by sketches of our UK sites in Tottenham, Central London and Warrington, and enriched with subtle festive touches and real imagery of our people, the design reflects the spirit of togetherness at MBA Group. 

As a family-run business built on relationships, connection is at the heart of everything we do. The relationships we build with our colleagues, clients, their customers and our partners shape how we work, how we grow and the value we create together. 

From all of us at MBA, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful festive season spent with the people you care about most. 

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If your organisation is preparing for the next chapter in communication, we’re here to help you make it happen.

Get in touch

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At MBA, our strength has always come from the relationships we’ve built and maintained with our clients from over 40 years of transforming communications.  

As we continue to grow rapidly, welcoming new clients while supporting long-standing ones, we’re constantly working to optimise a faster, more efficient onboarding experience. Migrations must be seamless, communication must remain accurate, compliant, and secure, and expectations for speed have never been higher. 

We’ve already invested heavily in streamlining our processes through development work, and while that has delivered strong progress, we’ve always recognised the need for further evolution in areas still reliant on traditional coding. With the intelligence and flexibility of AI, we know we can achieve more, and as a service provider, it’s imperative that we explore those possibilities. So when AWS recommended Devoteam as a partner to help us understand how AI could enhance our onboarding workflow, we seized the opportunity to take our approach further.  

Instead of asking Devoteam to solve only the parts we hadn’t yet addressed, we gave them the entire challenge. We wanted a clear, unbiased view of what AI could deliver when applied end-to-end.

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Reimagining a Core MBA Process 

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Onboarding a new client at scale is a detailed, highly specialised piece of work. Traditionally, our expert BA team analyses and transforms thousands of customer communication templates, each one needing to align with brand guidelines, regulatory requirements and the client’s own expectations.  

It’s a process that demands care, consistency and deep domain expertise. 

By stepping back and examining this workflow through the lens of AI, we identified several opportunities to improve: 

We saw AI as an opportunity that would empower our analyst teams and in turn, deliver the best customer experience for our clients.

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Partnering with Devoteam to Explore What AI Could Deliver 

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Working with Devoteam, an AWS Premier Partner, we launched a Generative AI-powered Proof of Value (PoV) aimed at showing what an AI-supported onboarding process could look like at MBA. 

The PoV focused on analysing PDF templates and transforming them into a structured, highly organised library of reusable components.  

Key capabilities developed included: 

These were areas that would traditionally take our team weeks of manual scrutiny, but AI was proving to accomplish many of them in minutes. 

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A Fast, Collaborative Delivery Approach 

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Devoteam worked closely with our BA team using their ADAPT framework, progressing through tight, focused sprints: 

This collaboration kept the work grounded in reality. We weren’t relying on theoretical AI promises, we were measuring real, tangible improvements against an already complex process. 

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The Impact: Faster, Smarter and More Accurate 

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The impact was significant. Work that once took months could now be completed in a matter of hours, accuracy improved with far fewer manual errors, and our BA team were able to redirect their time toward more strategic, value-driven work such as auditing, innovation and quality assurance. 

For us, it validated a belief we had going into the project: the future of onboarding at MBA isn’t AI or code, it’s the intelligent combination of both. 

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Where We Go from Here 

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The success of testing how AI efficiency can improve our onboarding processes has unlocked a new phase for MBA.  

We’re now shaping these learnings into a roadmap, where we’ll introduce asynchronous parallel processing to increase speed even further, integrate AI outputs directly into our wider document management ecosystem, and blend Devoteam’s AI models with our own codebase to build a powerful, efficient hybrid solution. 

And while the PoV delivered strong results, we fully expect that we’ll engage with Devoteam again as we continue to expand our AI capability. The collaboration has already shown what’s possible, and we know there is more value to unlock. 

By embracing the best of both AI and engineering, we’re continuing to move forward alongside technology developments at MBA, delivering our promise of simply powerful communication, and redefining what enterprise-level onboarding can look like. 

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“At MBA Group, we’re proud to be using Artificial Intelligence to drive efficiency, innovation, and value for our people and clients. Partnering with Devoteam on our Generative AI initiative has been a key step in that journey, helping us streamline client onboarding, accelerate delivery, and empower our teams to focus on higher-value work. This Proof of Value demonstrates our commitment to using AI that delivers real benefits and strengthens MBA’s position as a leader in intelligent, transformative customer communications.”  

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Our Evolution Timeline

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For over 40 years, MBA has been at the heart of how organisations communicate, evolving from traditional print roots into a leader in secure, data-driven, omni-channel communication. 

This timeline, launched at our 40th celebration earlier this year, highlights the milestones, innovations, and moments that shaped MBA into the powerhouse it is today. It showcases how the business has consistently adapted to new technologies, new expectations, and new ways of connecting, always with our people at the heart. 

As we wrap up the year and look towards 2026 and beyond, the story continues. Our channels are expanding, our partnerships are growing, and our investment in technology and AI is accelerating. The same spirit of innovation that defined our past is driving our future, helping us build smarter, more seamless, and more personalised ways for organisations to communicate in the years ahead. 

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If your organisation is preparing for the next chapter in communication, we’re here to help you make it happen.

Get in touch