Skip to content
Money and Pensions Service Website
Cymraeg
  • About us
    • Who we are
    • Board
      • Advisory Group to the Board
    • Executive Leadership Team
    • MoneyHelper
      • Share our cost of living campaign
    • Welsh Language Scheme
    • Careers
  • Our work
    • UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing
      • What is financial wellbeing?
    • Talk Money Week
      • Talk Money Week for schools
    • Debt
      • Breathing Space
      • Money Adviser Network
      • Quality Assurance Framework
    • Pensions
    • Money Guiders
    • Talk Learn Do
  • Work with us
    • Build financial wellbeing in your location
      • Scotland
      • Northern Ireland
      • Wales
      • North West England
      • North East England
      • Yorkshire and the Humber
      • West Midlands
      • East Midlands
      • East of England
      • London
      • South West England
      • South East England
    • Employers
    • Financial services
    • Health and social care
    • Housing
    • Local authorities
    • Schools
    • Procurement
  • Media centre
    • Press office
    • Press releases
    • Financial wellbeing blog
  • Publications
    • Business plan and Corporate Strategy
    • Consultations and responses
    • Research
    • MoneyHelper pension take up dashboard
  • Cymraeg

Cookies on maps.org.uk


Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. We use cookies to store information about how you use MaPS, such as the pages you visit. For more information visit our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.

Some cookies are essential for the site to function correctly, such as those remembering your progress through our tools, or using our webchat service.

These cookies allow us to collect anonymised data about how our website is being used, helping us to make improvements to the services we provide to you.


Reject additional cookies Save preferences Accept all cookies

  • Money Guiders home
  • Get started
  • Confidence checker
  • About
  1. Money Guiders
  2. Confidence checker
  3. Supporting you in: building relationships

Supporting you in: building relationships

Be comfortable talking to customers about their needs, and confident in helping them to manage their money better. Or build on what you know already if this is a strength area. 

How to use this support page

  • Bookmark this page so you can come back to it at any time.
  • If this is a focus area for you, start with Unsure about building relationships
  • If this a strength area for you, go to Confident about building relationships

Not sure what to do next? We recommend working through the page in full, starting with Unsure about building relationships. It's all useful.

Unsure about building relationships - boost your knowledge

1. When supporting your customers, you'll be using lots of personal skills and qualities that are just as important for money guidance as other aspects of your role. 

Hear from others giving money guidance on the attributes they bring to their role, and how it makes a real difference in the help they provide. 

Watch the video: Why personal qualities matter.

Read the transcript

[Screen text]

Why personal qualities matter.

We sat down with money guidance practitioners to talk about how personal qualities impact their work.

Why do you think your personal qualities matter to your customers when delivering money guidance?

 

[Voice: Lena Smith, Money and Support Adviser – University of South Wales]

“They’re coming to tell you something really personal about themselves and for a lot of it, when it comes to money guidance, you may be the first person they’ve spoken to about it because maybe they don’t feel comfortable speaking to a partner or their family.

“So it’s really important that you’ve created this safe environment and you’re approachable.”

 

[Voice: Olena Batista, Money Guidance Officer – Clarion Housing Group]

“Showing and knowing how to use your empathy is really important because when we work with customers who are, let’s say, fleeing domestic violence, who have been homeless, maybe have all sorts of emotions, lots of issues people are facing.

“You’re there to guide them. You’re not there to tell them what to do. You just help them make the right choices.”

 

[Voice: Irene Woods, Debt Coach – Christians Against Poverty]

“You need to be able to get alongside the person and build up a rapport with them and allow them to, be themselves and to be honest and open.”

 

[Screen text]

How can your personal qualities affect your customer’s experience?

 

[Voice: Lena Smith, Money and Support Adviser – University of South Wales]

“The qualities can affect it quite a lot, because if you come across quite negative or you could be biased against something, or they said something and you reacted to it in a different way, it can close that conversation down straight away. 

“And it might be just something little like you go, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have done that’. You know, those words are not helpful, because at the end of the day, this is not about what I would do, this is about how they’re going to manage it going forward.”

 

[Voice: Lucy Charnock, Regional Liaison (East) – The Injured Jockeys Fund]

“So, it’s absolutely essential for them to trust you and being able to have impartiality, diplomacy, self-awareness, and that sort of thing is absolutely essential to build that trust and open the dialogue.”

 

[Screen text]

Which of your personal qualities have you found most useful in your work and why?

 

[Voice: Irene Woods, Debt Coach – Christians Against Poverty]

“I think flexibility’s important because, you know, it could be any time of the day, they have a question, something comes up and I need to be quite available for them.”

 

[Voice: Lucy Charnock, Regional Liaison (East) – The Injured Jockeys Fund]

“The most important thing is being able to listen with patience and without having any opinion yourself, being completely impartial.

“So just listen to what somebody’s problem is, and then communicate effectively how you’re going to help them deal with that problem.”

 

[Voice: Farai Muchineripi – Quality and Compliance Manager – Money and Pensions Service]

“To help a customer make an informed decision, and not feel that, you know, we’ve actually recommended for them to do, a certain, or take a certain action or for them to actually take a product or go for a provider.

“Hence, why being impartial is really, really important in this role because we don’t provide any regulated advice and this is just guidance.”

 

[Screen text]

How have your personal qualities aided your work and helped your customers?

 

[Voice: Lena Smith, Money and Support Adviser – University of South Wales]

“Many advisers may know sometimes you can only have a short period of time to actually speak to a person. An appointment may be half an hour, an hour. And, with this student, it took more than one appointment. We actually ended up doing about six or eight. 

“The feedback that I got after it was that, she said that I was non-judgemental, that, not at any point did she feel that she’d done something wrong, and the fact that she felt that the guidance was always easy, it was in small parts. It was something that based on her wellbeing that she was able to manage and carry out at the time.”

 

[Voice: Olena Batista, Money Guidance Officer – Clarion Housing Group]

“So, being diplomatic is really important when you deliver money guidance. So, in particular, for example, in our field of social housing, often we come across residents that might not have had a great experience with some of our colleagues, so not taking sides is really important.

“And it’s often by working together collaboratively with other colleagues, we manage to solve our residents’ problems.”

 

[Voice: Farai Muchineripi – Quality and Compliance Manager – Money and Pensions Service]

“With coronavirus, you know when customers are coming through to us, it’s not just, you know, I’ve lost my job and it ends there, there’s quite a lot of things that do come with that, and being flexible in terms of how you actually deliver your money guidance, being able to actually look at the money guidance landscape and see how best to support these customers in this ever-changing world, is really important.”

2. Take some time to reflect on what you heard in the video (step 1). What did others say about helping their customers to feel safe and comfortable? How were they approachable to potentially vulnerable people? 

3. Read the Competency Framework for clear descriptions of the fundamental qualities and attributes needed to give money guidance, and if training would help you here.

Go to the framework: Foundation A: Personal qualities and attributes.

Confident about building relationships - build on your strength

1. Hear from others giving money guidance to customers facing difficult situations, and how important their personal skills and qualities are in making the people they help feel safe and comfortable.   

Watch the video: Who is your customer? 

2. Rapport building is one of six fundamental skills and qualities needed to give guidance. The others are: Personal integrity, Self-awareness, Impartiality, Diplomacy and Flexibility. Read our framework for descriptions of each and review if there are any areas for improvement. You may want to focus on a particular quality.   

Go to the framework: Foundation A: Personal qualities and attributes.

3. Share your insights at the Money Guiders Community Hub, and hear from others on their workplace learnings. These may help you in your role. 

Go to the Money Guiders Community HubOpens in a new window

Join us at a community event

Don’t forget to join the free Money Guiders networkOpens in a new window. Sign up today if you haven’t already done so. Then, you can join any event that supports you in your role. 

Familiar with the framework?

The Money Guidance Competency Framework sets clear benchmarks, and defines money guidance and the boundary with regulated advice.

Back to top

LEGAL

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy notice
  • Cookie policy
  • Money and Pensions Service standards
  • Public information
  • Subject access requests
  • Accessibility statement
  • Cookie preference

OUR BRANDS

  • MoneyHelper Opens in a new window
  • Financial Capability Strategy for the UK Opens in a new window

STAY IN TOUCH

  • Contact us
  • Sign up to newsletter Opens in a new window
  • Twitter Opens in a new window
  • LinkedIn Opens in a new window
  • YouTube Opens in a new window

Copyright 2025 Money & Pensions Service, Borough Hall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AB.

All rights reserved.