On November 6, 2019, Representative Larson, Chair of the Subcommittee on Social Security, requested that the Office of the Inspector General reviewSSA’s field office customer wait times and telephone services. In this report, we address SSA’s telephone services.We are issuing a separate report [which I haven't yet seen] related to SSA’s field office customer wait times. ...
Some Charts From The Report
[PC = Payment Center, which do the computations needed to place claimants on benefits. Giving their personnel telephone duties takes them away from the vital work to do something for which they're ill equipped to handle.]
Calls “abandoned in menus” occur when callers hang up while using automated services.
There's probably no way to figure this out, but I'm curious to know how many of the "abandoned" calls are actually just robo-calls, given the correlation with their rapid increase.
ReplyDeleteThe last two charts are particularly damming. Comparing average speed of response by SSA to other Government Agencies (13.4 minutes to 38 seconds in 2017 ) and comparing to private sector (in 2019 20.4 minutes to 28 seconds) with an increase in abandon calls to now 29%. Disgraceful.
ReplyDeleteI know one way to speed things up. there are at least two minutes of warnings and explanations on every call before I can even enter the extension when I know who I am calling. Allow connection to an extension right away before the warnings start.
@6:50
ReplyDeleteHmm, normally I would assume robo-call operators would be smart enough to exclude government call centers, or call centers in general. Then again, maybe they would not be that smart. We get them on our business lines regularly, actually more often than I get them on my personal phone.
Maybe congressman John Larson will FINALLY have an oversight hearing in the Social Security Subcommittee, and haul Andrew Saul in to testify. The only thing more embarrassing than the poor service at SSA is the lack of ANY oversight by the Democratic controlled House subcommittee.
ReplyDeleteDo other government agencies get the high volume of calls that SSA receives? Big factor in comparison. Also PC staff has been answering the GI line since at least the 1990s. PC staff are very well equipped to handle and assist in coverage. Staffing numbers as a whole cannot now, and never really have, been able to keep up with the volume of calls.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many abandoned calls are re-attempted very shortly thereafter with success? I.e., I think knowing how many calls from the same number and their timing could be illuminating.
ReplyDelete@9:44 AM
ReplyDeleteCan confirm, from first-hand experience, that the robs-call operators are NOT "smart enough" to exclude government offices and call-centers. In fact, SSA employees even get robot-calls from con artists claiming their SSN is in danger of being "cancelled" unless they pay $X immediately.
The sheer volume of calls. As a manager and with feedback from employees we put a lot time in coming up with solutions. Peak times were first hour, lunch, and sometimes end of day. I would put extra staff on during that time to answer calls quickly. Assuming I had the staff. I would answer calls and fill in for staff. Due to backlogs of work at the PC calls were shifted to field offices. This one area that least at the local level everyone pitches in to provide service but literally not enough manpower.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to any way of screening out robocalls, is anyone at SSA looking at why people are calling and seeing if there are ways to serve them in other ways, or avoid the need for them to call at all?
ReplyDeleteFor example, my guess is that a lot of the calls are "did you get the [X document] I submitted?" If SSA had a better way to process those documents (from the outside, WorkTrack doesn't seem to be doing everything it promised...) those calls could be reduced. Reps are making multiple calls to field offices to see why the 1696s they submitted haven't been processed and are told "fax it again" and then they need to call again. I'd guess at least 1-2 calls per claim could be avoided if SSA had the IT and staffing just to process that one form better and faster.
I work in a SSA payment center and I receive many robo-calls. For example I received a call which was a recording from "IRS" stating that had been audited and needed to call back immediately or my wages would be garnished. Also many calls for car repair insurance and sometimes foreign language calls. Very annoying when I'm trying to do complex calculations on a case. It would help if all these calls could be screened out.
ReplyDelete