Attracting New EAP Users Through Online Text-Based Chat Services

Abstract

With individuals’ increasing comfort with technology, and demand to access services when and how they choose, many services including clinical ones are moving online. As individuals adapt to an ever-changing world, they expect their service providers to also keep pace with these changes. This report examines the impact of First Chat, a secure, synchronous, live counselling chat tool used to provide clients with immediate clinical support in an EAP setting. First Chat is a solution- focused, clinical consultation that helps a client address issues of immediate concern under the guidance of a trained clinical counsellor. Our staff collected data from a sample of 407 chats taken from the period of December 5, 2011 to January 31, 2012. We also measured the level of client satisfaction on post-chat surveys collected from 95 randomly-selected chats. In addition, client age and sex were then compared against normative utilization data from the suite of Shepell·fgi EAP support services for 2011.