The new head of the Social Security Administration is looking to get call wait times down to “single digits,” as part of this strategy to make the agency a “digital-first organization.”
An SSA official told Federal News Network that the agency’s monthly average call wait time dropped from 30 minutes in January to just about 12 minutes in May, when including callers who were given a “callback” option and didn’t have to remain on hold.
SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told employees in an all-hands meeting on Thursday that was agency’s “best performance” since it started tracking these metrics. But said he plans to cut call wait times to a fraction of that using artificial intelligence tools.
“We’re going to get that thing down to single digits,” he said.
Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive who led a financial tech company before joining the Trump administration, told employees he was “using AI before it was AI,” and oversaw financial organizations that processed a higher volume of payments than SSA does.
“Much bigger orgs, much bigger problems — but not as important. Can you see the difference? Here we do $1.5 trillion a year. In my last job, we did $2.5 trillion a day. This is more important than that, though,” he said. …
35 comments:
Single digit dream….
Hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha
Frank impressed me and everyone watching in my office yesterday. Guy clearly knows his stuff. Will be interesting to see how he incorporates AI. No doubt we are lucky to have him. I’m excited for when he restores telework to make us a more digital organization.
What a moron. SSA administers complex programs that are infinitely more complicated than the mere payment processing his old company was doing. And SSA’s staff is barely bigger than Fiserv’s. Only a total dumbass would think the “success” of Fiserv is indicative of laziness or ineptitude at SSA.
Even if he gets the phone wait time down under 10 seconds he’ll still be a Nazi-supporting loser who threw his money and direct support behind Trump and Musk. You can’t buy your way out of being a fascist piece of s***, Frank, and no amount of good deeds will remove that stain from your legacy.
Pure arrogance. "Pride comes before a fall." If happens to them all.
The difference, never noted, is that processing transactions when there is no need to determine or evaluate the proper payment is something completely different that processing transactions that must first be evaluated for entitlement/eligibility. If you only consider the processing part after the amount is properly determined, i.e. the transmission to Treasury and the payment by them, there are vanishingly small errors and no significant problem.
His old company literally just ran software to relay information from one machine to another. That’s drawing triangles with crayons compared to what’s done at SSA. Perhaps he’ll come to understand that someday. But I doubt it since his only efforts to learn about SSA so far seem to have consisted of asking Jeeves what his new job is.
I know it was called an all hands meeting, but it seemed more of a meet the new glorious leader meeting and explain why he sounds drunk when he speaks meeting. I also like how they ignored the probably over 800 questions about whether there will be RIFs to ask the most sycophantic questions AI could generate.
"Much bigger orgs, much bigger problems — but not as important. Can you see the difference? Here we do $1.5 trillion a year. In my last job, we did $2.5 trillion a day. This is more important than that, though”
Cool story bro.
Maybe they can put trumps voice on the ssa phone line
Comparing what he said to what Fiserv’s own investor reports say has me doubting he even understood what Fiserv was doing while he ran it.
Sorry, Frank. Being an old white dude in a $20,000 suit might get you respect in the finance world, but you’re going to have to do a lot better to impress your staff and constituents at SSA.
First off, I am not a DT supporter, never have been and certainly never will be. I sent some paperwork into SSA to be copied so they could keep the copies. Months later, I receive my originals back....AND the copies they were supposed to keep. Now they are saying I never sent them in, I of course have proof I did, including video's of it going in the envelope to the postal employee taking them. The video stopped when I left the post office, and also, of course, sending them Certified/Return receipt. So, I am at square one again, months after I sold my house. I say, give him a chance because what's going on right now is so bad we really don't have a choice. Maybe he will have an idea in that DT butt-kissing head of his that might, if anything make it slightly better. It CERTAINLY isn't working the way it is!
I'd like to continue this comment if I could, because yes, single digits? Not with the available staff that are answering phones! It's impossible. HAHAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Whatever he is smoking, I'd like some.
“ Guy clearly knows his stuff.”
The dude had to google “what does SSA do” when he first learned about being a consideration for the job. I assure you, he does not “clearly know his stuff.”
No, it isn't the same work, and no, he does not understand it. He seems to think that processing a debit card purchase at Safeway is similar to what SSA does. The only thing SSA does that is similar is the monthly deposit into bank accounts. In terms of "error" rates in depositing the "right" amount into the right account (which is actually done by Treasury) I expect SSA is as good or better than Fiserv. The issue is not whether the designated dollar amount was deposited into the right account, it's whether, given the complex rules of Social Security and SSI and the need to update and verify earnings for millions of people subject to earnings tests, the designated amount for a given month was the correct amount after all the rules have been applied retrospectively. Months after his appointment he seems to have learned nothing and probably made no effort to learn. Considering the breadth and depth of his ignorance, his hubris is offensive. Watching his comeuppance will be amusing.
If he's still in the COSS job this time next year I'll be beyond shocked.
“Frank impressed me and everyone watching in my office yesterday.” OK you must not work in the FO because all of us were busy helping customers, including the management staff, but from the comments I am seeing here, it would have been a waste of time hearing him blow smoke up your a$$ anyways.
I have a single digit for him
If the new Commissioner does not want to completely alienate seniors and the disability community, he will need to acknowledge that AI is not currently competent to advise and direct callers in a complex subject matter area like this. We need real solutions, not artificial ones that don’t work.
But he googled it! He has knowledge! HAHA.
I am sure when he googled it, he just read the AI they use to summarize Social Security Commissioner duties! LOL. I agree...REAL...not AI. At least not yet, it hasn't come far enough to be implementing into such a complex system.
I’m supposed to believe this guy’s company processed roughly three times the entire nation’s entire annual GDP on a monthly basis?
What an absolute a$$clown. Come back and do another meeting when you’re not so full of s***, Frank.
Frank is clear, telework is not coming back.
The agency has lost thousands of employees and the agency is a disaster but you still think telework is still an option? You must be joking… right?
Musk’s legacy at ‘DOGE’: A smaller Social Security Administration struggling under the weight of greater demand
Busy signals, more required office visits and new procedures have led to fear and uncertainty
Au contraire monfrere. ALJs and OHO are still happily teleworking full time. They have proven themselves the model. Frank knows it and will usher in a new era of telework for all. Frank himself is something of a teleworker.
He has no idea what those backlogs are made of, and that hubris to say sh*t before knowing which he speaks says volumes. He will fail spectacularly, as his idea of what the problems are are simply uninformed.
Cut this s*** out, troll. ALJs and OHO are not teleworking full time, and most of OHO had stopped teleworking full time years ago.
Always you with telework and referencing ALJs. Telework is done. You beat this dead horse all you want. The Agency lost so much time literally chasing down staff, no VPN connections, “systems” issues, “I need to restart…” Literally, hours daily. Recalling staff due to their OWN poor connectivity only resulted in most taking leave instead of going to the office. Also, the Help Desk is gone. Local ASCs are left to deal with these “systems” issues…which would be an impossible task with teleworkers. Telework is dead, as it should be.
Telework is not dead. Many PC components are teleworking on OT this weekend. Most are working SSAFA GPO cases. Others are doing regular work. OHO still has telework. If these employees can be trusted to telework on OT, why not regular time too?
Employees who've worked with Frank B at his previous companies said he would pit employees against each other, etc., and that he has never had to deal with organized labor. Hopefully, the unions can protect employees. As one of his previous employees said, "You are in a war with the man..." and that SSA employees better realize this truth.
You can read Frank B's former employees' comments on this Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1kyjy70/ssa_all_hands_meeting_with_franky_bisignano/
Managers doing front line duties are a definite symptom of lack of staff. A Manager's duties are to manage and support the staff and direct workflow. Managers who have to jump in and do staff job are not really functioning as a Manager. Managers are not front line workers. Do you think Frank ever worked his company's phone desk or did the job of one of his office staffs? I don't think so!
https://www.ssa.gov/budget/assets/materials/2026/2026BO.pdf
Should be easier to run now that the GOP suddenly decided we can afford to spend several hundred million more dollars on it, too.
You republicans are grade A dumbf***s.
Strongly disagree. That was $200 suit from Target that wasn’t even tailored. He looked like a clown.
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