The Change Machine App allows you to collect basic information about your customers’ financial security and how they feel about their finances through the use of surveys.

There are four optional surveys in the Survey tab:

The Change Machine Assessment:

The Assessment survey contains questions that help you to determine what your customer's presenting issue is, and can be helpful to conduct during an initial or early meeting.
The CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale:

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Financial Well-Being Scale was developed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and allows practitioners to collect information from their customers regarding how their financial situation affects their overall financial capability. As you work with customers over time, the Financial Well-Being Scale can be used to measure changes in their financial security.
The Financial Capability Scale:

The Financial Capability Scale was developed by Dr. Michael Collins from the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The FCS asks a series of questions of the customer and then quantifies their financial security behavior into a number: between 0 and 8 inclusive. It’s intended to measure changes in attitudes and behavior with respect to a customer’s finances over time.

While these assessments and surveys are optional to fill out, using them is recommended as they act as a handy conversation starter for you to understand your customer’s financial situation better.

Entering Surveys:

To fill out assessments and surveys, click on the Survey tab in a customer’s individual record.

Select which survey(s) you’d like to work through with the customer and select “Next”. You may select more than one survey at any time to complete multiple surveys at one time.

Tip: When completing surveys and assessments, it may be helpful to share your computer screen so that it is visible to both you and your customer. This allows the customer to have a sense of the questions being asked and the options available from the dropdown fields.

Once the surveys have been completed, they can be accessed in the beginning section of the Survey tab.

Entering a Change Machine Assessment:

The Change Machine Assessment allows you to gather basic information about the customer to get a bird’s eye view of the customer’s financial situation. It can also help a coach and customers to identify priority areas to work through together.

Below are additional details regarding a few questions included in the survey.

Health Insurance: A drop-down selection of health insurance situations.
Banking Status: A drop-down selection to identify whether the customer has a checking account, a savings account, both or neither.
Automatic Deposit and Transfer: A dropdown to select whether the customer’s accounts (if they have one) are set up for Automatic Deposit and Transfer.
Personal Budget: A drop-down to select whether the customer has developed a personal budget.
Employment Status: A drop-down to select from a range of options that might describe a customer’s status of employment, such as part-time employment or retired.
Total Yearly Household Income: A textbox to enter the total annual household income for the customer, which could be pulled from most recently filed taxes.
Income Supports: An opportunity to select all the possible income supports the customer currently receives, such as TANF or SNAP benefits.
Benefits: An opportunity to select all the possible supports that the customer might benefit from, such as food assistance or utility assistance.
Smartphone Access: A dropdown to select whether or not the customer has access to a smartphone.

Entering The Financial Capability Scale or the Financial Capability Scale:

These assessments should be conducted with the customer. You can read the questions and possible answers outloud to the customer or allow the customer to read the questions themselves and choose the answer that most applies to them. By conducting one or both of these surveys early in your coaching relationship with the client and readministering them periodically, you are able to track changes in your customer’s financial security over time.

Note: Every three months, from the date of your first meeting with a customer, the platform will prompt you to ask your customer to complete the survey questions again.

You can see the results of assessments or surveys taken overtime and review changes in the scores and answers.