Here to help

Made possible with a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund and being piloted this summer, an upcoming chatbot function on the Crohn’s & Colitis UK website will assist users 24 hours a day, every day of the week.  

We spoke with project leader and Crohn’s & Colitis UK digital manager Kian Scott-Loach to find out more about the project, with a working title of ‘Gutsy’.  

What function will the chatbot have? 

A chatbot is an automated tool that helps people find information and support quickly and easily. We understand that people aren’t able to find the information they want straight away, and that’s partly because we have a huge volume of information about a wide variety of things. From conditions to treatments, tests to appointments – we cover the whole spectrum of the experience of dealing with Crohn’s or Colitis.  

There’s a lot of information and support available, and we’re trying to leverage technology to help people find it easily. This is particularly important out of hours when the helpline isn’t available. We’re making sure it’s complementary to the helpline, rather than competing with it. It’s an additional service to guide people.  

How can users access it? 

There will be a button on the website; it will be very clear and easy to find. You’ll just click on the button and a popup will come up with a little field that will ask a series of questions, and then the information that the user wants will appear on the screen.  

How did you identify the need for a chatbot? 

We had a lot of feedback from visitors to our website who were struggling to find what they wanted to know. We, as a digital team, also do a lot of digging in the background to find out how people are actually using the website. We can see where people are struggling to find the information they want, so we look at the whole experience. That’s where we start to think about technological tools that can help bring more of a human element to things. We’re trying to make sure that the chatbot, which we’re currently calling Gutsy, feels like it’s human. People with Crohn’s and Colitis have been at the centre of our thinking.   

When will it be available? 

At the moment we’re at the stage of a prototype, so we’ve actually got something that’s working and we’ve been testing it internally with a few of us who are affected by Crohn’s or Colitis. The next step is to map all the information so we’re getting as much content as possible into it, then building it so it’s as easy to use as possible. It should be on the website at some point over the summer.