Contents An overview of the Helpline How to get the most out of the Helpline Updates and new features How to become a partner or access new features

An overview The Helpline is a multi-channel service and can be accessed by telephone ( ), web-chat, and social media. It is accessed via GOV.UK and GREAT, alongside a number of partner websites and growth hubs. It supports central and local governments aim to ensure that individuals and businesses find the right support for them as quickly as possible. Partners who currently work actively with the Helpline or use it as a frontline service are; 11 growth hubs, HMRC, Enterprise agencies, EEN, Innovate UK, UNLTD, etc.

Customer Journey Multi-channel access Tier 2 complex Signposting Growth Hub referrals Information and Guidance Tier 1 Triage/ Simple queries 9 – 6 telephone support Signposting to national and local information/support Basic information and simple queries Web chat management Event promotion Outbound calling for analysis and research Emergency response Experienced business advisors Bespoke in-depth conversations: Obtaining finance In difficulty Complex Needs Growth aspirations HMRC webinars Emergency response Social Media CRM Knowledge Bank Reporting

The story so far:

Phone The Business Support Helpline has a team of experienced advisors who can answer the hubs inbound telephone calls. 9am-6pm Mon-Fri on All out of hours telephone calls are picked up by answerphone and called back the next working day. Hubs can use the Helpline as their primary/only helpline number or advertise the national number alongside a local number and direct specific customer segments to the most appropriate number. For example: the Helpline can handle the high volume/ resource intensive pre-start calls, allowing the hub to deal with high growth/ established businesses.

Web Chat enables a two way, live conversation between a company and the Helpline. The service can be easily set up and requires a widget, which we will provide, to be placed on the web pages where you require the chat facility. The chat is presented to one of the Business Support Advisors who talk to the business live online. At the end of the chat a full transcript, including any web page urls, is ed to the business. Web Chat

Social Media The Business Support Helpline is also on Twitter Facebook (facebook.com/Businesssupportgov ) and You Tube.Twitter FacebookYou Tube We will interact with your social media channels and promote your offers, events and support through these channels. The Helpline can also make referrals/signposts to your growth hub from customers contacting us via our Social Channels K

Knowledge Bank The Helpline knowledge bank (KB) is managed and updated daily and includes both local and national information 1800 articles are currently held on the KB with over 200+ partners supporting content. The KB is a cloud based platform so can be easily accessed by partners via a personal log in. Each growth hub has a dedicated senior Knowledge Manger who can visit the hub, help to ensure the information we hold about the hub is up to date, assist with understanding the data received from the Helpline and resolve any queries or concerns.

All hubs/LEPs receive monthly reporting, giving a summary of callers accessing the Business Support Helpline Reporting and Information

How to get the most value from the Helpline

The service Open to allMOU/ ISA Telephone XX XX Webchat XX Access to KB XX Social media channels XX YouTube / Webinars XX Anonymised data XX Detailed data X Emergency response XX All helpline customers signposted to hub XX

Updates and new features

Actions from the growth hub survey 1) Access to the Knowledge Bank for all – no data sharing or MOU required. 2) Access to Web-chat for all – no data sharing or MOU required. 3)Improved referral data where ISA’s in place with a growth hub 4) Improved reporting: available in real time with the addition of a qlikview licence £210 one off cost + £42 renewal.

Dashboards Demo..\Documents\BIS Helpline Quick Analysis - Shortcut.lnk

How to become a partner or access new features

Jane Fairclough at BIS and inform her you wish to incorporate the Business Support Helpline as part of your growth hub’s business support offer, or add an additional feature: Provide details of your growth hub offer, as well as any schemes, providers or initiatives that are available within your growth hub area directly to the Knowledge Managers This will ensure that the helpline advisors have all of the information they need to signpost customers The Helpline will assign you with a Knowledge Manager who will provide you with the web-chat widget, logins for the knowledge bank and ongoing support to ensure the information held on our knowledge bank/BFSF is accurate and up to date Incorporating the Helpline into your offer

Any questions or ideas for improvement