The Cost of Not Knowing Who Your Vulnerable Customers Are

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

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: 

• Identifying vulnerability through behaviour and engagement patterns, rather than waiting for customers to self-declare. 

• Simplifying customer journeys end-to-end, removing unnecessary steps and cognitive load. 

• Using data to create a coherent, joined-up view of the customer, preventing contradictory or poorly timed messages. 

• Adapting communications dynamically, responding to changes in engagement and circumstance as they occur. 

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.

ㅤ

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. 

ㅤ

FAQs 

ㅤ

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.