OIG Report On Telephone Service Last Summer

     From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

On July 21, 2020, Representative John Larson, Chair, and Tom Reed, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Social Security, requested the Office of the Inspector General review SSA’s telephone services during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this report, we address SSA’s telephone services for June 2020. ...

In June 2020, SSA’s field offices and national 800-number received30 percent more calls than June 2019, with field offices receiving most of the additional calls. Also, during the same periods, 

• calls to the field offices and the national 800-number during business hours resulted in fewer busy messages, though the business hours for the national 800-number were reduced in June 2020, 
• the number of callers who hung up without speaking to an employee during business hours was lower for the field offices but slightly higher for the national 800-number, 
• the number of calls handled by employees was much higher for calls to the field offices but remained about the same for calls to the national 800-number, and
• callers to field offices waited less time for service while callers to the 800-number waited longer. ...
  

In general, SSA’s telephone services performance during June 2020 was similar to 13 customer service call centers we reviewed from 10 other Federal agencies, as compared to June 2019, but SSA’s performance seemed to fare better during COVID-19 than industry call centers. ...