The webchat service was started in April 2015, and operates on gov.uk across personal tax services and on some employer and agent services. HMRC also offers a virtual support service on some of its webpages, known as virtual assistant, which will either direct people to online guidance or re-direct them to a webchat adviser.

Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute, on behalf of HMRC, conducted qualitative research with a sample of 18 people who had recently used HMRC’s webchat, and 14 who had never used the service, and included individuals, businesses and tax agents.

This showed that users were positive about HMRC webchat, feeling they had been dealt with swiftly and professionally had their queries resolved. The benefits included speed, convenience, the ability to multi-task while transacting and to generate an electronic record of the interaction, in the form of a chat log.

As a result, users were keen for HMRC to do more to promote the webchat service. It was felt the most important features to communicate were the speed, security and personal (rather than automated) nature of the service offered.

The research also found that the non-users of HMRC webchat did not generally ‘reject’ webchat as a means of interacting with HMRC, but were simply unaware that it was available as an option. There was little evidence that users and non-users viewed webchat differently. Indeed, there was enthusiasm among non-users for using the service once they had been made aware of it.

The research participants made a number of suggestions for boosting the profile of webchats, including sending information about the service to customers in letters about tax affairs; asking advisers on the HMRC phone lines to alert customers to the existence of the webchat service at end of the phone conversation; putting a link to webchat higher up/more prominently on HMRC’s contact us page on gov.uk; and integrating integrate webchat links across the HMRC web pages.

They also thought HMRC should clearly articulate the benefits of using webchat, stressing the advantage in speed, and that webchat has human advisers, rather than being an automated service.

The research concluded that ‘HMRC webchat is seen by those who use it as a high quality service and a positive way of interacting with HMRC compared to other channels, such as telephone. Suggestions for modifying the service were largely incremental improvements, and customers’ main concern was that the service should be more widely known than it is.’

HMRC Webchat Customer Research is here.

Report by Pat Sweet