Five Lessons, One Goal: Lower Cost to Serve in 2026

As organisations kick-off their plans for 2026, many are asking a familiar question: how do we deliver more value from the core platforms we already have?

Over recent years, regulated service providers have invested heavily in digital communications — often starting with marketing campaigns and outbound messaging. Whilst that investment may have delivered value, it has also revealed a much bigger opportunity.

The next step in digital engagement needs to involve more than just marketing messages – it’s about using digital customer journeys as a core lever to reduce the cost to serve.

This thinking led us to develop the SERVE framework — Service, Experience, Regulations, Value, and Efficiency — as a practical way to turn these lessons into action. In this final blog of the year, we look back at five case studies from 2025, selecting one example for each SERVE theme to illustrate how organisations can use digital customer journeys to deliver real, measurable operational value.

Service: Using Insight to Improve Outcomes

One of the clearest lessons from 2025 was that service outcomes improve when decisions are informed by consistent, real-time customer insight.

Our work with Ballymena Causeway Credit Union showed how structured, digital member surveys can transform service delivery. By creating an easy, automated way for members to share feedback, the credit union gained insight that would have been difficult and expensive to capture through traditional channels.

The real opportunity for 2026 is to embed this kind of listening directly into everyday customer journeys, reducing friction and preventing issues before they escalate and require more costly human intervention. Below are three items that might be worth adding to your ‘To-Do’ List for 2026 in order to provide better service at a lower cost.

Experience: Getting the Early Moments Right

Experience emerged repeatedly as a driver of both satisfaction and cost for financial service providers in 2025.

The digital consent journey delivered by Waterford Credit Union (now Journi Credit Union) shows how getting early-stage interactions right can have a lasting impact. By streamlining how member consent was captured and managed, the credit union removed ambiguity, reduced manual follow-up, and ensured members clearly understood how and when they would be contacted.

When expectations are set clearly at the outset, organisations avoid confusion later. Customers are less likely to question communications, less likely to disengage, and far less likely to make unnecessary inbound contact.

As organisations plan for 2026, the opportunity lies in identifying foundational journeys such as consent, onboarding and preference management, where better experience design can reduce friction and cost across the entire customer lifecycle. Once again, there are three things to consider as you plan a better digital experience for your customers next year.

Regulations: Designing Compliance into the Journey

Regulatory compliance requirements continue to increase across financial markets, but digital technology offers practical ways to manage this added complexity.

The work we did with with Savvi Credit Union, re-engaging dormant members, highlighted the benefits of building compliance directly into digital journeys. Automated, consistent communications reduced manual effort while ensuring regulatory obligations were met every time.

For 2026, the lesson is clear: compliance should be designed into journeys from the start, not managed as an exception or afterthought and our three top-tips for 2026 are below.

Value: Proving That Digital Delivers Outcomes

A recurring theme in 2025 was the need to demonstrate tangible value from digital investment.

The results achieved by Voyager Alliance Credit Union, driving significant loan book growth through targeted digital journeys, show what’s possible when customer engagement is tied directly to outcomes.

Looking ahead, organisations should expect customer journeys to deliver measurable business impact, not just engagement. While measuring value may be difficult at first, the following three practical steps to consider for 2026 can significantly improve how outcomes are defined and measured.

Efficiency: Doing More with Less, Without Compromise

Efficiency remains central to the cost-to-serve challenge.

The case study of Bishopstown Credit Union (now Inspire Credit Union) demonstrates how adopting digital-first AGM communications can effectively replace traditional manual and paper-intensive processes with streamlined digital workflows. This approach not only reduces costs, effort, and complexity, but also enhances the overall customer experience.

Through the adoption of this digital-first approach, Bishopstown delivered a more efficient and responsive AGM campaign, achieving an 80% reduction in costs while enhancing the experience for customers and staff.

In 2026, the biggest efficiency gains will come from redesigning high-volume, repeat processes so that work is removed entirely, not just digitised. Below are three practical steps organisations can take to make this shift.

Turning Insight into Action in 2026

Taken together, these case studies highlight a clear shift: digital platforms deliver the greatest value when they move beyond communications and become part of how services are delivered.

We believe that the opportunity going forward is not to run more campaigns, but to apply these lessons across more journeys, more processes, and more operational touchpoints to deliver more for less in 2026.

If you would like to find out how we can help you to reduce your cost to serve please get in touch with us by filling in the form below.