Which? aims to empower consumers using digital tools that help users produce formal letters for tricky personal situations or report problems through structured journeys. Initial tools helped with flight delay compensation letters and faulty goods refund requests. The tools work by embedding a signup form to collect user information, then using that data to generate a personalized complaint letter that the user can email to a company. The tools are low-cost for Which? and self-service for users, while demonstrating Which?'s value and deepening user trust. Which? also developed tools to help a regulator investigate bank transfer scams by breaking the process into friendly steps and ensuring submissions are structured and useful. Over 32,000 reports were collected, overwhelming the regulator and revealing millions of pounds

1. Helping supporters help themselves
with simple digital tools
Adam Gillett | Which?

2. Why tools?
Which? exists to make consumers as powerful as the organisations they deal with every day.
While petitions are great, we want to use our digital
skills and platforms to do more, every day:
➔ Empowering supporters to speak out
➔ Helping them navigate complex problems
➔ Creating ambassadors
➔ Growing our supporter base in return

3. Two initial avenues
➔Letter tools – help users produce formal letters for tricky personal situations
➔Triage/reporting tools – create a structured, guided journey to diagnose and
report problems
Both add value to standard signup forms – the former by repurposing the inputs,
the latter by restructuring the journey.

4. Letter-writing tools
Picked out the areas with the highest traffic and where personalised tools could be
developed. Initial trials included:
➔ Flight delay compensation
➔ Flight cancellation compensation
➔ Faulty goods - repair/refund request

5. How they work
Embedded form Completion preview Letter email

6. The recipe (technical bit)
➔ Ingredient 1: a signup form – recreating your standard CRM form within a simple web
page gives you the flexibility to add custom scripts and manipulate how information is
handled and submitted.
➔ Ingredient 2: a little JavaScript/jQuery – submits to your signup form, then pulls it from
the signup JSON into a preview complaint letter.

7. The recipe (technical bit)
➔ Ingredient 3: email personalisation – use the personalisation fields in your
transactional/receipt email to deliver a custom letter that a supporter can send
to a company or influencer.
➔ Ingredient 4: a little data analysis and follow-up – check in with tool users
later to gain feedback for promotion and fix problems

8. Why they work
➔ Fill in the gaps for non-experts – saving your supporters time and money
demonstrates your value and deepens trust
➔ Costs you nothing – if you already have a campaigns lead-gen platform like
BSD, you already have everything you need to offer this
➔ Entirely self-service – no support or maintenance are really required once
launched, and it will collect leads organically as long as it’s live.

9. Triage tools: what and why?
Gathering evidence for public inquiries that is valuable and relevant can be a
struggle for government, and can be a slog for individuals. These:
➔ Explain the purpose of the investigation
➔ Break the process of participating into friendly, manageable pieces
➔ Personalise the process, asking only what is relevant to an individual
➔ Ensure that the submission collected is in a structured, useful format
➔ Avoid lots of custom development and microsites

10. How they work
Content page
introduction/journey
Relevant forms for
different groups
Relevant support
content end points

11. Why structure it this way?
➔Gradually introduce a complex issue
➔Filter out but still give outlets to those unaffected
➔Personalise each step
➔(Internally) clearly define roles with a project,
contextualise comms

12. Example: bank transfer scams
Context:
➔We wanted to highlight the lack of protection consumers have if tricked into
transferring money from their account to scammers.
➔The regulator was unsure of the scale of the problem
➔We decided to help them find out

13. Example: bank transfer scams
Solution:
➔Ask supporters if they have been affected, and allow them to report personal
experiences, or those of friends/family
➔Four steps – triage, evidence-giving, completion (with advice) and the option to
discuss further.
➔Social sharing, email journeys and press partnerships launched to boost
awareness.

14. Example: bank transfer scams
The results:
➔Over 32,000 people came forward to share their evidence, overwhelming the
regulator
➔Millions of pounds of scams were reported, many for the first time – breaking the
shame barrier that often accompanies fraud.
➔The regulator is now investigating this kind of scam further.

15. General tool advice: avoiding pitfalls
➔ Consider your embeds
➔ Automate away admin
➔ Define a strict time-frame (or have systems in place to cope with a trickle)

16. General tool advice: avoiding pitfalls
➔ Provide a route for and be prepared to manage correspondence
➔ Think about how you’ll collect and treat user feedback
➔ Improve, adapt – and recycle!

17. Overall results for our tools

18. Latest developments
➔ Widgetisation – better embedding, better
tracking.
➔ Pagination – adding decision trees and
personalisation within forms themselves.
Which?/BSD widgetisation tool

19. Next steps
Taking the strain out of handling all the data
➔ Automation of feedback – triggered emails after a defined period that gather
feedback
➔ Automation of analysis – using machine learning to spot word patterns and
company names.
➔ Linking with data sources for better letters – although beware evil permissions!

20. Some final thoughts

21. Thanks for listening!
Adam Gillett | Which?
Email: adam.gillett@which.co.uk
Twitter: @ahgillett
Current status: extremely relieved