How Genesys Cloud Helped StepChange Cut Misrouted Calls by 60 Percent

What if the biggest innovation in customer experience isn't replacing people with AI, but making sure the right person is available at exactly the right moment? And for organisations that are supporting vulnerable customers, every interaction matters. And getting it wrong can add even more stress to an already difficult situation.

And my guest today is Chris Lovell from a company called StepChange, and he will share how a rapid contact center transformation helped hundreds of thousands of people access support faster, while also giving advisors more time to focus on those conversations that mattered most. But I don't want to reveal any spoilers here. So that means it's time for me to introduce you to today's guests. You're going to love this one. Well, let's bring him on to the show now. so a massive warm welcome to the show can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do chris yeah sure hi everyone i'm chris laval and i lead service delivery for

step change debt charities contact center uh me and my team focus on making sure people can access the right support when they reach out to us which is often a really sort of difficult point in their lives combined in that role is also the fact that i'm a product owner for our genesis cloud platform so that's what our contact center runs off and so it's a really uh role that's kind of split

across the operation the front client facing teams and also the technology teams uh focusing on how we design and evolve journeys and really the tools that sit behind our whole service um really rewarding role i mean ultimately you know you can boil it right down to the fact that everything we do comes down to making it as easy as possible for somebody in financial difficulty

to get the help that they need and you mentioned genesis i've got to ask have you been to any of tech conferences i've been to a couple i wonder if we've been alongside each other and not known it maybe i went to my first one actually in april the experience store in london i was actually talking at the event so yeah um it was a quite an experience i wasn't expecting the size of it so

when i walked in i was a bit i was a bit sort of in awe but yeah no it was it was a great event and great to showcase the work we've been able to do alongside the genesis platform which really unlocked a lot of value for us and what were you talking about at the event just really um it was sort of a ball down version of what we're going to talk about today so our transformation um

utilizing the the new technology that we've been able to unlock with genesis and and just bringing that bringing the human element to it so what that means in practice the work we do it it's a great story in the fact that it's a real social purpose it's got that human touch so to sort of talk about technology in that in that setting i think it's really powerful and for people listening step

change supports hundreds of thousands of people every year many of whom are dealing with intense financial and emotional pressure so what are the expectations that people bring when they when they reach out to you for help and why is the quality of the that first interaction so important because although we're going to talk a lot around technology and the tech story here it's humans

right at the the heart of this isn't it very human stories absolutely i think i said before you people come to us certainly that first interaction with us is usually a really difficult moment for them and they're not just dealing with debt that's a really important thing here debt doesn't really happen in a vacuum they're often dealing with a lot of uncertainty around their wider situation

and really when you start looking at some of the stats we publish around our client base it does bring that to life so i'll share a couple now just to sort of frame that so in our most recent year book that we published a couple of months back around 40 of the clients that we have are on universal credit over 60 percent are renting and more than half have some additional form of

vulnerability so obviously financial difficulties of vulnerability in its own right but on top of that almost half of our clients have an additional vulnerability as well so people aren't just looking for like an answer they're often looking to for that reassurance and to try and regain a sense of control in their lives really so that with that said so that's quite a complex situation to

do with that said though i think the expectation when they reach out is actually quite simple they want to know that they've come to the right place first and foremost and that someone on the other end of the phone or the other end of the digital channel or on the website understands their situation and that they're going to get clear practical next steps like i said to regain

that sense of control i think that's that's their main target when they're reaching out to speak to us and that's why that interaction really matters you know a lot because if we're slow or if we have to get them to repeat themselves it just increases stress at the exact moment in time where they're under probably the most pressure and our research consistently shows that people

wait too long to reach out for help with their debts you know i think the most recent start i heard was you know they really should have come 12 months earlier than what they did and obviously the longer you leave it the more complex it gets so if you think from a human perspective if you've built up the courage to reach out and talk to another person about your debt and then that

interaction is not great then it can probably knock you back on your journey and you might not take the step you need to take right right here and now so yeah it's quite high stakes game but on the flip side if we get that moment right getting them the sport they need quickly giving them that clarity that they're searching for showing them what happens next it can immediately