In May 2020 the Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on the successes and failures of the agency’s telephone customer service. One key finding from the report is that it is obvious Social Security has work to do to improve its telephone service. Telephone service is even more important today because Social Security offices remain mostly closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and left millions of Americans with no other choice than to seek telephone customer service. In the summary of the report the OIG admits “SSA did not fare as well compared to government and private sector benchmarks,” when it comes to proving telephone service to customers.
The report was in response to U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-Connecticut) requesting that the OIG review SSA’s field office customer wait times and telephone services. Larson, the chair of the Subcommittee on Social Security, issued this request Nov. 6, 2019. Below are the findings of the OIG report.
Findings
Between FYs 2010 and 2019, SSA’s national 800-number experienced a 6-percent increase in calls. In addition,
- calls to the national 800-number resulted in more busy messages and hang-ups without the caller receiving service,
- the number of calls employees answered decreased,
- callers waited longer for service,
- more callers had their issues resolved on the first call, and
- teleservice center staff levels declined by 12 percent.
While SSA did not fare as well compared to government and private sector benchmarks, caller satisfaction was above the Federal average. To improve callers’ experience and satisfaction, SSA plans to combine all its telephone service offerings into one platform to route calls to the best source quickly. In addition, SSA is implementing other improvements to its call center process and is hiring additional employees to answer telephone calls. However, effective March 31, 2020, in response to the recent coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak, SSA temporarily changed its telephone services, including modified hours for its national 800-number.
In response to our draft report, SSA stated its FY 2020 plan includes a priority goal to improve wait times for service on the national 800-number through targeted hiring, reassessing training methods, and improved technology. SSA also stated that, through the first quarter of FY 2020, it hired and initially trained approximately 460 new hires to support the national 800-number operations and will continue efforts to replace staffing losses and hire additional employees.
The findings of the report were produced after the OIG analyzed performance metrics and customer service information for the agency’s national 800 number and field office telephone services for fiscal years 2010 through 2019. In addition, the OIG obtained information from SSA on factors that affect telephone customer service and SSA’s strategies to improve them.
Customer service has always been an issue for Social Security. There have always been long wait times at Social Security field offices and for telephone services. It appears that the pandemic has only made things worse, but there is really no solution to the problem until Social Security realizes that adequate staffing is the real problem.
