It’s time to put fairness back at the centre of your brand

In the years ahead, it will be fair and democratic brands that will be best placed to combat the plague of consumer fatigue and indifference and positively engage their customers.

To set the scene: even one of the world’s most high-profile business sectors – the energy industry – has been troubled by total consumer indifference in recent years. Where, despite a panoply of companies and tariffs available, the vast majority of the market audience fails to shop for better deals on their gas and electric.

In the UK, this has led to government intervention in the form of the recently-imposed energy price cap. But the cap doesn’t address the real issue, which is consumer indifference – not market failure. The better value deals are there, but hardly anyone is buying them. This is why we’ve seen nine small energy brands fail in the last year. These firms offer the best prices but fail to reach the scale to make the tariffs financially viable.

So how can such brands address indifference, and get their customers to engage? In my view, two things are necessary.

Firstly, fairness. The energy price cap is touted as progressive and fair, but it is in fact punishing to the minority of customers that engage and look for the best energy deals by causing price rises across the board. Since the announcement of the cap, the UK’s big six energy providers have inched their default tariffs as close as possible to the ceiling. It’s little wonder the vast majority of households are disengaged.

When it comes to financial brands, there’s no great secret sauce for success through fairness, but there are examples to learn from. Consumer bank First Direct consistently wins awards and is rated best-in-class not because of fancy tech gimmicks or ground-breaking products but because it treats customers fairly. Like it or not, old-fashioned good customer service tends to make the difference. A customer that feels they are getting fair treatment and a good deal is a happy one.