While we will never know the true economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we can be sure that widespread job losses and curtailed income will continue for months and perhaps even years to come. People in the UK have been offered and have accepted significant government support in the form of mortgage and loan payment deferrals, business loans, and job retention schemes, which have provided some much-needed breathing space.

However, those support measures will soon come to an end. Lenders need to prepare now to ensure they will be able to continue supporting customers, and to ensure they will be able to carry out their obligations to treating customers fairly.

It is important that lenders have a solid understanding of customer needs in these unprecedented times. Once the support mechanisms from the government are withdrawn we would expect there to be four types of customer, each with their own complex needs.

Uncertain: These people include employees who are in fear of redundancy, as well as the self-employed and business owners. They will be facing uncertainty on what income they expect over the next six to 12 months following a period of no work or limited trading. These customers will have needs beyond payment deferrals, to reduce payment commitments until their income can stabilise once again.

Curtailed: These customers may have been furloughed or received lower levels of income for a short period (three to four months) and may have requested payment deferrals during this period. They are expected to sustain full payments following the payment deferral including uplifts in future payments as a result. Some customers may want to increase the term of their mortgage. There may also be customers who were not financially affected by the crisis, but who may have taken advantage of payment deferrals to reserve funds for their future. They may not understand the spread of capital and interest as a result of taking the payment deferral, which could result in customer dissatisfaction over time.

Troubled: These customers are likely to have experienced an unexpected redundancy, perhaps after a period of being furloughed. They may have found new employment but at a lower income level. They have suffered a significant impact financially and will be at risk of not being able to meet payments in the short term as well as longer term.

Fortuitous: A unique segment with its own challenges for lenders, these people have been unaffected financially during the crisis. They may actually have some surplus income available to enable them to make overpayments, since their spending may have reduced during lockdown.

With such varied customer segments in play at the same time, each demanding very different approaches to arrears and collections management, it is critical that lenders do not apply a ?one size fits all? approach. While digital self-service solutions allow for the handling of peaks in demand, providing customers with a ?contactless? and accessible way of managing their arrears, it's important not to forget the human element. Each of these segments should have tailored forbearance solutions applied, with highly trained specialist agents on hand to support customers on their own individual journeys.