“ It takes time for consumers to adapt , even to contactless ,” says Cox . “ I remember how long it was out there before people started to use that technology . In London they called it the ‘ TFL moment ’, but outside of London it was more the , dare I say , the latte moment when you could actually pay for your coffee without having minimum fees and minimum values attached .
“ Initially , when that first came out , consumers were very wary of what happens if they lose their card . ‘ What happens ? Someone else could use it ’. So , with any new payment method , it just takes time for people to get familiar and to trust it , which is one of the challenges ahead of us .”
Growth is the goal and is enabled by digital technology In such a rapid chain of events , the world has moved into a very autonomous way of working and the majority of consumers today are able to adopt changes much faster thanks to the generational increase in digital literacy . But Virgin Media O2 recognises that not everyone is that way inclined . Although the majority of new customers are open to digital , there remains a large enough population to warrant manual consumer engagements — and it ’ s something the company will offer until , and if , this way of customer service naturally phases out .
In fact , being a major player in the industry puts Virgin Media O2 in a great position to influence the industry through supporting regulators to generally focus the trajectory of media and communications . Having worked with Pay UK , Cox explains how his work helps build a suitable regulatory structure to suit businesses and their loyal service users .
“ We flag anything that would negatively or positively impact a merchant . We work with the regulators a lot to ensure that the end-state product delivers what our front-end consumers are looking for . The other thing we keep flagging , which just gets forgotten sometimes , is meeting the needs of all demographics . When I bring this up in meetings , some people within those meetings are still surprised that not everyone actually has a smartphone ,” says Cox .
It is always somewhat refreshing to see that Cox ’ s approach to customer service isn ’ t just about how they interact with the business , but he also likes to understand consumers ’ desires from a much deeper perspective .
“ Some of our consumers still go to the local post office to pay their bill . Not always because they couldn ’ t pay by other means , it may because the cashier could be the only person they see , or it may literally be the only trip out in the week ,” Cox explains .
“ We must remember to meet the needs of all customers , demographics and backgrounds rather than just assuming everyone ’ s got a smartphone , or that everyone wants to go digital .”
He refers to this as a ‘ balancing act ’ as he also addresses the idea of digital disparity of those that actually use technology to make their payments to Virgin Media O2 . “ With the payment landscape ever changing , we must work with providers of digital wallets like Google Pay / Apple Pay / Click To Pay or indeed , open banking — any of those . We should ensure that whatever we put in front of our consumers , close to 100 % of our customers could , in principle , use that function and trust it ; know it ’ s secure and know that we ’ ve done all we can to develop it from a consumer perspective ,” Cox says .
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