Callers to Centrelink seethe for an average nine minutes and 42 seconds in the holding queue before hanging up, the auditor general has reported, with 26 million callers each year never getting through, or abandoning the call before their issue is addressed.
Those gritty customers who opt to wait it out manage to reach an operator within an average 17 minutes, according to the report released on Thursday, which documents the frustrating ritual of modern life as it plays out in the federal government’s most-called department.
Average time in the queue for Centrelink’s 56.8m annual calls has blown out by more than 500% in the past three years, thanks in part to a reduction in call centre staff, a focus on “achieving efficiencies”, and less call blocking.
This reporter, seeking to test out waiting times, spent approximately 12 minutes navigating the agency’s new interactive voice response system, which seeks to answer a caller’s request using pre-recorded messages; kind of like navigating the encyclopaedia by telephone.
The repeated request, “Please, can I speak with an operator”, merely activated a series of new pre-recorded messages. The volume or tone of the request did little to change the outcome. The system appeared not to recognise expletives.
Hungry, and at this point quite harried, once in the queue the Guardian hung up after four minutes to avoid adding to the stress levels of other callers awaiting assistance.
Thursday’s report noted that a proportion of Centrelink’s callers were people with complex needs, such as mental illness, or with a history of long-term disadvantage, including a lack of education or health problems.
The Department of Human Services (DHS) said it was doing the best with the money it was given. “The department has estimated that to reduce the KPI [key performance indicator] to an average speed of answer of five minutes, it would need an additional 1,000 staff at a cost of over $100m each and every year,” it said.
Senator Marise Payne told ABC radio on Thursday: “Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to address the symptoms and not the cause of Centrelink telephone wait times is not a responsible use of taxpayer money.”
Fairfax Media reported on Thursday that DHS staff had been ordered to cancel team meetings, training and other “off-phone” activities for at least two days and attend to any calls, in a bid to temporarily improve performance times.
Meanwhile, callers to that government department responsible for taking money, rather than giving it out, fared much better. The report noted the Australian Taxation Office answered 80% of the public’s calls within five minutes.
