The journey of developing an inclusive helpline

In our first guest blog, we welcome Citizens Advice Scotland, a Challenge Sponsor of CivTech 6 in 2021. George Eckton, Director of Advice Services at CAS, sets out how CivTech helped them find a solution to connect people with the best help and advice Citizens Advice Scotland can offer.

Since before the start of the pandemic, we have faced many challenges. For the Voluntary Sector in particular, new approaches have been needed in these circumstances to digitally augment much needed in-person services to enable us to see more clients more efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively, especially given the lockdowns, social distancing and the current Cost of Living Crisis.

These challenges were also faced by the members of the Citizens Advice Scotland network who as independent charities provide confidential and free advice face to face, online and by phone. Giving quality assured advice to local clients by local volunteers, who know their community, remains an essential part of our network’s work. However, there was a clear need to augment our remote support options to direct users quickly and appropriately to advice across many channels in times of record demand for advice and support. 

​​It was crucial for us not to replace people with technology, as human support, especially given the period of social distancing, is needed more than ever while solving problems. This is particularly important for our more vulnerable clients with complex needs.  It is reassuring for our service users when they can receive personal advice adapted to their specific needs. Local knowledge is vital, for example knowing exact directions to a local food bank that might be slightly difficult to find, or the name of the person who will be able to help you when you reach your destination. That local knowledge and intelligence is what makes the Citizens Advice network special, and is something that could never be replicated by a remote, centralised, call centre.

Our previous emergency response to the early days of the pandemic used a call centre-based approach, which made it a lottery for anyone phoning our helpline to be immediately connected to a volunteer working in their area. They still got high quality advice but without the added benefits of local knowledge. Once their needs were identified, it could take time for further communication to be arranged with someone local to them, which slowed down the process of getting them the help they needed. We understood that technology could be used to help us do our work faster and more efficiently, but with budgets already stretched as a Voluntary Sector organisation, and our very specific set of needs, a suitable off-the-shelf system didn’t exist.

Having worked with CivTech previously, I realised this could be a perfect solution. We launched a CivTech Challenge, which is funded in part by the Scottish Government, with this technical issue in mind.

We posed the question: How can we use the latest technology to create an inclusive helpline and provide local advice to every citizen and direct them to the nearest Citizens Advice Bureau?

Considering the breadth of our network and the need for high-quality, cost-effective solutions, we decided in the Accelerator Stage on a No-Code solution: innovating on existing technologies instead of developing a product from scratch. In doing so, we were able to set up a state-of-the-art AI system live on the Scottish Citizen Advice Helpline (SCAH) in only three months by working with CivTech and SIDE Labs.

Another success followed in spring 2022, again achieved through the No-Code approach, which solved the long-standing problem of AI not being able to recognise the Scottish accent. For this, our partner SIDE Labs used an artificial intelligence system from Poly AI and speech recognition technology.

Encouraged and supported by the CivTech team, we have developed a valuable and inclusive helpline at the lowest cost and greatest benefit to Scotland. We are looking forward to seeing how the latest approach can be extended, e.g. through chatbots, voice AI to answer simple questions or translation services.

This approach is a real asset for the Voluntary Sector, saving time and funds. In addition, it allows focus on meeting customer needs, in line with local volunteers working for and in local communities. Solutions can be delivered without the need for great technical knowledge and permanent updates. This means that even smaller charities can affordably access innovative technology that enables them to help more people.

To learn more about SIDE Labs and how they approached this Challenge, you can watch their Demo Day presentation here: https://www.civtechdemoday.com/challenge-11-side-labs