Technology can help people get through Christmas.

If you are a regular reader of my articles and LinkedIn posts, you will know that I spend a lot of time discussing how businesses can use technology to improve their customer experience. As it is Christmas, I wanted to highlight a really important charity that is taking steps to use technology to offer help in a different way.

For most of us, Christmas is an incredibly joyful time of the year. We are full of holiday cheer, eggnog, presents and beautiful memories with family and friends. But for some people, this is the most challenging time of the year. Last year, the Samaritans answered 1120 calls on Christmas day alone. Three hundred volunteers operate the phone lines over Christmas.

This year, the Samaritans began a pilot scheme, testing a live online chat service so that people who need to talk but feel like calling isn’t for them can still reach a Samaritan and chat through their problems in real time.

This is no small undertaking for a charity that has run a phone listening service for 60 years. For this to be possible, an incredible amount of work must be done on infrastructure, security, and data handling. The training for a volunteer tackling difficult conversations online and on the phone will be very different. We have all experienced how a text’s lack of tone and the wrong words can make us feel aggrieved. The Samaritans must take the right approach - they are doing precisely this. The scheme is currently in a pilot phase. Web chat is now available on a small scale, and visitors are being offered access to web chat at random.

The current journey of someone requesting a web chat is as simple as possible:

Join the waiting room. On this page, visitors will be updated on their wait time to speak to someone. Right now, this is estimated to take 35 minutes. During this time, a visitor can begin to write their first message.

Connect to a Samaritan. Once the chat has begun, a Samaritan will listen and help talk through concerns, worries and troubles.

Chat in a safe space. The online operative has been trained to help focus the thought of the person reaching out and will dive into questions to help explore how you are feeling.

This is a genuinely fantastic application of technology. While it isn’t a revolutionary technology, this application is precisely why I love working in the tech space. A tried and tested system used for sales and customer experience can, with the correct thinking and the right approach, really help lives.

If Christmas is a difficult time for you, the web chat might not be available for you yet, but you can still call 116 123 and reach a friendly, helpful voice.?

If you are one of the lucky ones having a great time, consider donating some time or a little money to help keep this vital service going and thriving in the new digital age.

Merry Christmas to you all. I look forward to sharing more technology wins with you all next year!