Rerouting Calls To Distant Field Offices Doesn't Help Unless You View Providing Service As Only A PR Problem

     From National Public Radio (which is still a thing):

Phone calls to local Social Security offices are currently being rerouted to other field offices — often to staff who don't have jurisdiction over the caller's case, employees say.

Disability advocates and experts warn this is making it harder for people to get help. ...

In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson for the agency said that "the goal of the phone sharing system is to enhance customer service by reducing wait times and addressing customer needs at the first point of contact. ... 

But Angela Digeronimo, a claims specialist in Woodbridge, N.J., and president of a union that represents employees at 25 offices in the state, told NPR this new system creates a "hit or miss" situation for people calling in to their local office.

Digeronimo said the intention of this change "may have been to not have callers waiting," which is a good thing. But in practice, she said, it delays getting an issue sorted if a caller is rerouted to a local office that can't actually fix their problem.

"If it's someone else's office, the jurisdiction is someone else's," she said. "You can't take action on it because your office does not have the ability to clear that claim. You have to refer it over to the servicing office, which is what the member of the public thought they were doing. So, it gets a little bit cumbersome." ...