CompaniesMay 5 2015

Mas smashes interaction targets, but falls short on actions

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Mas smashes interaction targets, but falls short on actions

Today (5 May) the Money Advice Service has published its performance results for the year 2014/2015, which reveal that the organisation has exceeded its target for the volume of customer contacts by over 6m.

The service had an annual target of 16m for the year 2014/2015 but reached over 22m interactions through either a visit to the website, web chat, phone or a face-to-face session.

In total, the number of times Mas gave customers the help they required was almost 12.5m, over double its 6m target for the year beginning April 2014 and ending March 2015.

Elsewhere, the organisation did not meet all its targets for satisfaction criteria.

Mas had a target of 70 per cent over 2014/2015 for the percentage of people stating the service had helped them decide on a course of action. For both the first three months of this year and the year to MArch overall, the organisation only reached 63 per cent.

Mas said it had exceeded all its other satisfaction criteria, which included the percentage of people stating they would revisit the service and the percentage of people who would recommend the service.

Mas had a target of 4.5m actions taken as a result of the service but actually reached over 9m from April to December 2014. The organisation has not yet received its full results for the period until March 2015.

Speaking to FTAdviser, Caroline Rookes, chief executive of the Money Advice Service said that she expected actions taken as a result of the service to be in excess of 12m.

She added that last year the organisation had to contend with the independent review, led by former chief executive officer of the National Association of Pension Funds Christine Farnish, which has recommended to service move away from money advice and slash its budget.

Ms Rookes said elsewhere that in terms of what she wanted Mas to improve on over the coming quarter, it would be on the quality of engagement.

“We want to understand more about customers and what engages them so we can get them to take action.

“The Money Advice Service had a budget cut for 205/2016 - we want to maintain the numbers that are taking action or even increase these and ensure that we are getting to people who need help most.”

On the debt side, the organisation is undergoing a range of work including a range of new quality standards which will include a new peer review process.

“The important thing is that we do continue to reach more and more people. It is a small percentage of people with debt problems who actually seek advice.”

ruth.gillbe@ft.com