Introducing the live webchat toolkit September, 2016 This presentation can be used as a foundation for your own; please feel free to add more slides and amend as you wish.

Why use this toolkit? This toolkit was developed as part of a pilot around providing integrated money advice to clients, via the means of live web-chat. This approach to money advice has since been developed and taken on board by several other parts of the network since, and so this toolkit is provided to support these local offices. Clients that contact Citizens Advice via live webchat are – by definition – engaging with us on a channel with very different strengths and weaknesses to face to face advice. Traditional methods of delivering financial capability no longer apply, and so resources have been developed to take the nuances of live webchat into account.

What is so different about live webchat? Strengths: Clients are already digitally connected, so can receive links or e-mails. Clients are contacting us in real-time, so can answer questions immediately. As with DROs, clients tend to contact us after certain common ‘triggers’ initiate a debt problem. Weaknesses: Clients can disengage very easily. Clients may lose connection mid-advice. There is limited time to respond to a live chat promptly. Lengthy delays are to be avoided. Clients contact us for advice, and have little immediate interest in financial capability.

The approach in the live webchat toolkit Many of the clients who contact us via live webchat have the same issues as those clients who contact us for general debt advice. These issues are often triggered via the same unexpected life-events: 1 – Sudden unemployment 2 – Multiple HP agreements 3 – A New Baby 4 – Council Tax Arrears 5 – Payday Loans and doorstep lenders 6 – Relationship breakdown 7 – Losing a partner 8 – Delays in benefits Those clients whose trigger is hard to identify can still benefit from the following: 9 – Credit Repair 10 – Checking benefit entitlements/local assistance 11 – Chasing PPI’s 12 - Generic online tools

Practical use The webchat advisor should have the toolkit open - on the contents page – on a separate tab on their computer. During the webchat, they can identify which one of these 12 potential resources would best suit the client’s needs. At the end of a webchat – whether it is ended abruptly or closes after full advice is given – the advisor can select the appropriate resource. This can be copied and pasted in full into the final response to the client. The advisor will need to add their reference number, but otherwise the response is a prepared script with all appropriate links already hyper-linked in.

Recording on Petra Each resource in the toolkit has some recommended AIC codes on them, as indicated. Advisers do not have to use these if they feel their particular intervention did not cover the recommended areas, but generally these codes will accurately reflect the intervention. Further advice on Citizens Advice evaluation methods is also included in the toolkit. The recommended AIC code is here

What happens next? The live webchat toolkit has seen successful use in Citizens Advice projects, but is still in the pilot stages. The Toolkit is provided for all local Citizens Advice and partner organisations to use, but is still very much a ‘work-in-progress’ and should be used as such. New versions will be uploaded online at regular intervals, in response to continued feedback and practical testing. For those local offices interested in new and innovative models, which are catered to address the differing channels and needs of our clients, they can see the various toolkits available in the Resource Toolkits tab of the financial capability section of the Citizen Advice website. Further toolkits will be added as they leave the testing stage of their respective projects.

For any further information or feedback, contact us at Financial For any further information or feedback, contact us at Financial.Skills@citizensadvice.org.uk

The Financial Skills for Life team Christy McAleese Team manager 03000 231 209 David Mahon Forums / Training & resources 03000 231 582 Hannah Luck Forums / Communication & information 03000 231 581 Also… Basam Diablos Financial capability development consultant Basam is attached to the FSfL team, but also works across other teams and divisions equally.

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