StepChange delivers a strategic digital and AI transformation to scale access to life-changing debt advice

Creating a society free from problem debt

YouGov research finds that about two in five of UK adults are currently struggling to keep up with their bills, highlighting the financial fragility of households across the country. Many face rising arrears, unstable employment, declining mental health and the emotional toll of long-term stress.

Helping people in crisis starts with making it easier to ask for help. At StepChange, the UK’s largest debt charity, that means removing barriers to support and creating experiences that are faster, simpler and more compassionate.

“Behind those numbers are people losing sleep, skipping essentials and feeling overwhelmed by financial pressure,” said Chris Lovell, Contact Centre Service Delivery Manager at StepChange. “Too often, people suffer in silence because asking for help can feel daunting or out of reach. Our role is to make that first step easier — helping them take back control and begin rebuilding their lives with hope and confidence.”

Transforming to be digital-first and data-led

With the UK continuing to experience a cost-of-living crisis, demand for the charity’s service has grown — with engagements reaching 5.3 million website visits, 860,000 calls and 2.4 million client engagements annually. Client needs have become more complex, with more than half citing multiple vulnerabilities. At the same time, legacy customer experience (CX) systems were making it harder to deliver the fast, compassionate support StepChange sought to provide.

Vulnerable clients faced long wait times and disconnected journeys. Behind the scenes, frontline teams managing complex, emotionally charged conversations were constantly screen jumping and battling system stability issues — making a tough job even tougher.

Determined to remove barriers for those seeking assistance, StepChange set a new course to become a digital-first, data-led organization within the next four years.

“That meant finding a solution that could scale to meet growing national demand, deliver smarter and more intuitive digital journeys, ease advisor workloads, and help us provide faster, more empathetic support,” said Lovell. “Along with our partner, Connect, Genesys makes that possible.”

Removing barriers to essential assistance

StepChange knows that behind every click, call and message is someone facing real worry. The charity doesn’t want to add to that stress.

“At every stage of our experience strategy, we ask ourselves one question: ‘Will this make it easier for someone in financial crisis to reach support?’” said Kaley Mawson, Contact Center Platform Lead at StepChange.

Since moving to the Genesys Cloud™ platform, StepChange has transformed the experience of seeking debt advice — giving clients greater flexibility, convenience and choice during difficult moments. By connecting digital engagement, AI, advisor tools and workforce management on a single platform, the charity now orchestrates each interaction around client needs rather than system limitations.

Clients can now choose the channel that feels most comfortable, whether by phone, email, SMS, web messaging or virtual agents. This gives people more control over how they seek support during difficult moments.

The move also delivered immediate operational improvements, including out-of-hours SMS support and integrated email handling. Previously, client correspondence was split across Outlook inboxes and siloed processes.

Integrating email into Genesys Cloud has allowed the charity to consolidate email handling. And by removing manual processes and streamlining workflows, advisors can now deliver more consistent, high-quality support across every interaction.

“Genesys is the orchestration layer that enables our client journeys to run as smoothly as possible, freeing-up that human capacity to have those conversations that matter,” added Lovell. “We’re seeing strong momentum in outcomes, with individual voluntary arrangement and debt payment program approvals and activations up around 20% year-on-year — a reflection of both demand and the impact of high-quality advice.”

Implementing Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management has further reduced operational strain. Supervisors use it to assist with advisor scheduling, service-demand forecasting and quality monitoring.

Accelerating access to debt advice through virtual agents

In addition, StepChange has optimized front door and advisor handling. Digital channels have become a vital safety net for people feeling overwhelmed, ashamed, or unable to talk about debt, particularly young adults, renters and single parents.

Genesys Cloud virtual agents have helped StepChange improve digital containment rates and routing accuracy, which eliminates the emotional burden of clients having to repeat their story. Virtual assistants support about 1,700 sessions per week during peak periods. And IVR-triggered SMS journeys have redirected over 25,000 clients from voice queues, delivering a 61% increase in digital registration completions.

The charity has also reduced avoidable contacts, freeing advisors to focus on complex or sensitive cases, such as clients facing imminent eviction, utility disconnection or severe mental distress.

“We manage about 2.4 million engagements annually, and 93% of clients now choose digital services for anonymous, self-guided support,” said Lovell. “They simply explain their needs in their own words and get to the right advisor quickly. In addition, 25% of payment calls fully self-serve, again reducing wait times for other clients beginning their debt advice journey.”

While virtual agents help ensure clients reach the right resource quickly, StepChange has also focused on improving the advisor experience once conversations reach a human expert.

AI-powered Genesys Cloud Agent Copilot has strengthened advisor capability by providing real-time prompts, auto-summaries and context-based wrap code suggestions. Along with reducing cognitive load, Agent Copilot boosts advisor confidence and enables more consistent, empathetic conversations.

“We wanted to empower our advisors by eliminating distracting notetaking and admin tasks,” added Mawson. “Now, with Genesys Cloud Agent Copilot, they feel better equipped, more effective, and more emotionally present.”

Life-changing outcomes at scale

Over the past year, StepChange has combined technology and human support to deliver measurable, life-changing results.

The charity introduced more than 50 transformational improvements — enabling first-time routing for over 15,000 contacts, giving more than 3,000 clients access to out-of-hours SMS support when they needed it most, and creating the equivalent of 40 additional FTE advisors, allowing more people to receive expert support without increasing operating costs.

“Over 12 months, we provided tailored advice to more than 160,000 clients and helped 32,000 people secure £150 million in benefit entitlements,” said Lovell. “And, best of all, about 16,000 people became completely debt-free.”

Finally, the charity’s shift to a value-stream delivery model has improved alignment across teams and enabled continuous service innovation through a Genesys test bed informed by client needs, advisor input and real-time service insight. StepChange also reduced total cost of ownership by migrating to Genesys Cloud and related vendor consolidation.

AI-illuminating analytics guide continuous improvement

Rather than delivering isolated technology improvements, StepChange has built a continuous innovation model where customer insight surfaced through Genesys Speech and Text Analytics combined with employee feedback to evolve services as client needs change.

“We operate in a highly regulated environment where demand can shift rapidly in response to geopolitical and economic pressures,” said Lovell. “Our Genesys-powered platform is a fundamental part of our growth. We can go from business problem to solution design to implementation within a matter of days.”

In the past 12 months, the charity’s digital-first, data-driven transformation has received universal recognition from Feefo, Trustpilot, the UK National Contact Centre Awards, and leading bodies across the UK credit sector.

To learn more about the solutions featured in this case study, visit www.genesys.com.