Insights
5 tips to turn Consumer Duty into a strategic advantage
Turn regulatory expectations into better outcomes – for both your customers and your contact center.
Consumer Duty isn’t just another compliance tick-box. It’s a strategic opportunity to raise the bar on customer outcomes. This year, the FCA’s focus is firmly on how firms evidence their progress. That means your next board report isn’t about what you say you’re doing – it’s about what’s changed since your last one.
So how can you stay ahead of the curve? We spoke to Consumer Duty expert James Edmonds of Duty CX, and have rounded up the key takeaways from our recent webinar ‘Consumer Duty in 2025 and beyond: Practical strategies to improve CX’.
1. Focus on outcomes, not just experience
Traditional metrics like CSAT and NPS tell you how customers felt – but not what actually happened to them. Under Consumer Duty, firms must show they’re delivering good outcomes, not just good experiences. Your agent may have handled a conversation politely and pleasantly – but did the customer get what they needed?
To deliver on this, you’ll need to evolve from traditional contact center KPIs to whole-journey insights that link clearly to customer results.
Tip: Audit your metrics. Are they tied to actual outcomes, or just service moments? If the answer is unclear, it’s time to shift.
2. Use technology to spot (and support) vulnerability
According to research by Watermelon, half of UK consumers could be considered vulnerable under the Consumer Duty categories – but it’s unfair to place this identification on agents.
Instead, use automated tools to flag vulnerability based on customer data and conversation intelligence to bolster your efforts. This takes the pressure off your front line, eliminates biases and also prevents customers from having to self-disclose or answer potentially intrusive questions.
Tip: Don’t treat technology as a replacement for frontline insight. Combine tech-driven signals with real human feedback for a full picture.
3. Go beyond quality assurance: analyze the whole conversation
Many firms still focus QA on the agent’s script or tone, but the FCA wants to see you understand the customer’s side too. With tools like conversation analytics, you can objectively assess intent, emotion, and whether the customer left with the right outcome.
Tip: Use analytics to identify the next-best action and continually feed insights into both your QA process and frontline training.
4. Embed Consumer Duty into culture and transformation
Consumer Duty shouldn’t just live in compliance documents. It needs to live in your people’s daily decisions too, and that starts with employee engagement.
Involve your teams in change, help them understand the ‘why’, and celebrate their role in delivering better customer outcomes.
Tip: Don’t deliver change to people – do it with them. That’s how you create lasting behavior shifts.
5. Act on the exceptions
Repurposing old dashboards, like from the ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ initiative, won’t cut it. You need to track outcomes against the FCA’s Consumer Duty pillars and crucially, focus on the exceptions.
If you conclude that you’re delivering 90% of customers a good outcome, you’ll need to look at the 10% who didn’t. They are where improvement lives. Perhaps an interaction was mishandled, or it could be that they’re coming to your business for the wrong thing. Customers churn could even be a good outcome, if it’s for the right reasons.
Tip: Data analysis and customer follow-ups may take time, but they’re your clearest evidence of progress. Next time, you’ll want to show you’ve bettered even 90%!
Make Consumer Duty a strategic advantage
Consumer Duty isn’t just a regulation. It’s a lens for building a more customer-centric, resilient business.
If you’re still treating it as a tick-box exercise, you’ll quickly fall behind as the FCA tasks businesses to do better.
Get ahead of the curve by being proactive. Interrogate your data, listen to your people, and keep outcomes front of mind. That way, you’ll not only satisfy the FCA, but your customers too.
Let 2025 be the year you turn compliance into competitive edge.
Want access to the full conversation? Watch our Consumer Duty webinar on demand.
