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In Focus Appointments & Updates
The Money Advice Trust has published its Outcomes Report 2021, which outlines the impact of the charity’s activity across its National Debtline and Business Debtline services, training and infl uencing work. In 2021 the charity helped 170,420 people
through its National and Business Debtline services with 1.63 million visits to its advice websites. National Debtline, which provides free, impartial debt advice, helped 107,510 people over the phone and via its digital advice tool, with a further 27,430 people helped through webchat. Over the course of the year, National Debtline’s advice website had 1.3 million visits. Joanna Elson CBE, chief executive of the
Money Advice Trust, said: “Last year was a particularly diffi cult year for millions of people as the fi nancial eff ects of Covid-19 continued to be felt. Our advice services played a crucial role in hundreds of thousands of lives as we helped people to take the steps to tackle their debts. “We were able to continue to adapt our
work to the changing landscape, brought about by the pandemic. This included, building on our Wiseradviser programme for debt advisers, which last year saw us train
Responding to the FCA’s call for lenders to support customers facing fi nancial distress, global analytics software fi rm FICO is highlighting the importance of omnichannel strategies for customer communications. Research conducted by FICO in 2020 revealed that UK consumers found contact with lenders diffi cult in the early days of the pandemic. Now, with the cost-of-living crisis putting pressure on consumer fi nances again, the pressure will be on lenders’ resources to manage communications and support eff ectively. “Many lessons have been learnt in terms of customer communication”, said Bruce Curry, senior principal consultant in EMEA at global analytics fi rm FICO. “They know that they need to be able to respond quickly across multiple orchestrated channels, or risk losing a big piece of their customer base as well as facing the scrutiny of the regulators. “An omnichannel approach, directed by good data and analytics, should be at the heart of the customer engagement strategies. Automated two-way dialogues across email, SMS, mobile apps, IVR and online sites become more powerful when driven by analytic strategies. And, in terms of time-to-value, omnichannel communications are one of the quickest, most powerful solutions that lenders can implement, with a high return on investment in terms of both fi nance and customer good will.”
Bruce Curry
more advisers than ever before. We also further developed our vulnerability training, introducing new courses on inclusive design and suicide fi rst aid to improve support for customers in vulnerable services.”
Webio has announced a series A funding round led by Finch Capital. Webio is primed to scale-up following the digital shift during the pandemic and the uncertain economic climate to make diffi cult conversations about payments easy through their Conversation AI. Webio’s technology has enabled leading UK and European companies to communicate conversationally with customers throughout their credit and collections journey. Customers can ask questions, change payment dates, or organise a new repayment schedule, all tailored to their circumstances, all done through Conversational AI and automation. Customers experience the assurance that they have been engaged with, listened to, and interacted with fairly and appropriately and in turn, are more likely to be able to keep to their repayment schedules. Cormac O’Neill, Co-Founder and CEO at Webio said: “Conversations about
money are stressful and diffi cult, not only for the customer but also for agents tasked with having these conversations. Going digital means companies can create a whole new set of digital experiences that help customers feel more confi dent in having those diffi cult conversations and ultimately, stop them from falling into unnecessary and signifi cant fi nancial diffi culty. And we are excited that Webio’s conversational AI is enabling companies to engage with customers in a more empathetic manner, at scale.”
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With the Offi ce for National Statistics confi rming that annual consumer price infl ation reached 9.1% in May, up from 9% in April, with its analysis showing that people are using a variety of responses to cope such as cutting back on food/essential spending (41%), using savings (21%), and turning more to credit (15%), StepChange Debt Charity says that the government’s package of support measures is still only partially fi lling the gap between people’s incomes and their increasing cost of living. For people in debt and on low incomes, without fi nancial resilience to absorb higher costs into their budgets, further targeted help is going to be needed. Richard Lane, director of external aff airs at
StepChange, said: “The government’s package of cost of living support measures will undoubtedly help many households to cope, albeit with diffi culty. Yet for many people on low incomes and in debt, who have already pared back to the bare essentials, there is still a shortfall between income and essential spending. Every hike in infl ation widens the gap, and leaves people having to make ever more diffi cult choices in an impossible fi nancial situation. “Among new clients turning to us for help,
through the course of this year we have seen that on average they already have higher
June 2022
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