Understanding Under Pressure

What helps customers understand complex financial decisions when life gets difficult?

A bereavement. A health challenge. Financial uncertainty. A major retirement decision.

These experiences can affect how people process information, weigh up their options and decide what to do next. Yet they are often the very moments when understanding matters most.

Our new report, Understanding Under Pressure, brings together three years of evidence from behavioural science, customer research, experimentation, outcomes testing and vulnerability research.

Building on Barriers to Disclosure

Our previous research, Barriers to Disclosure, explored why customers do not always tell firms when they need support. It found that uncertainty, low trust and concerns about consequences can make disclosure difficult, particularly during periods of stress.

This raised an important follow-up question: what happens when customers do not disclose?

If firms cannot rely on customers sharing vulnerable circumstances, communications and journeys need to work for everyone, including people whose circumstances are temporary, hidden or never disclosed. Understanding Under Pressure explores how organisations can support customer understanding without depending on disclosure alone.

Understanding changes under pressure

Customers navigating grief, poor health, financial pressure or significant life events may find it harder to interpret information and decide what action to take. Communications that seem straightforward in everyday circumstances can become much harder to use.

This is not a niche issue affecting a small group of people. Understanding under pressure is something most of us will experience at different points in our lives.

Our research also found that many poor customer outcomes are not caused by information being absent. More often, customers struggle to understand what information means for them, why it matters, or what action they should take next.

Four questions that shape understanding

Across the research, customers were more likely to understand communications when they could quickly answer four questions:

1. Where do I start? Can I easily identify the information that is relevant to me?
2. Why does it matter? Do I understand the significance and potential consequences?
3. What should I notice? Can I identify the information that deserves my attention?
4. What do I do next? Is the action clear, visible and easy to complete?

Together, these questions form the Understanding Under Pressure Framework.

Why apparent clarity can be misleading

Across our studies, customers often described communications as clear and reassuring while overlooking important information or misunderstanding their options. This suggests that readability and positive feedback are not sufficient evidence of understanding.

Effective testing must therefore go beyond readability or whether customers like a communication. It should show whether they can interpret the information, recognise its relevance and identify what to do next.

By designing and testing communications for real-world circumstances, including stress, grief and uncertainty, organisations can support better understanding without relying on customers to disclose that they need help.

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The full report sets out the research, evidence and framework for professionals working across customer experience, behavioural science, vulnerability, communications, design, operations, product, risk and compliance.