MEMBERSHIP INSIGHT
Hanging on the telephone
Samantha Mann, senior policy and research officer for the CIPP, provides the findings of a recent survey about your experience with HMRC contact centres
I n September 2015, the CIPP’s policy team published a survey that aimed to provide the team with a benchmark of where our members (and other payroll practitioners) sat with regards to their experiences when using HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) contact centres. The survey results are available on page 8 of Issue 18 (March 2016) of Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward and page 32 of the CIPP Policy News Journal for 2015–16 which can found be at http:// goo.gl/UVPEqJ. ...the need to ensure that GOV. UK continues to expand its range as well as its search facilities... We planned to re-run the survey six months later to see whether there would be any noticeable difference to response times and service following the additional investment by HMRC to expand the numbers of staff being made available to serve the contact centres. The follow-up survey The follow-up survey ran from 10 March to 31 March; of the 41 respondents six were non-CIPP members. As with the previous
survey we received responses from a range of payroll professionals and as ever we are extremely grateful to those of you who took the time out of your very busy schedules in order to complete this survey. ● Is HMRC your first port of call? – It would appear that for survey respondents, confidence in turning to HMRC as a first port of call is largely in the same vein as that in September with ‘Yes’ still firmly behind ‘No’ and ‘Sometimes’. Once again comments also provided a similar picture, with reasons given for responses ranging from: takes too long to answer; no confidence in the response; inconsistent responses; last resort only if unable to resource an answer elsewhere; and lack of subject specialist knowledge. Alternative sources of information are being found: online; from colleagues or online peer forums; other helplines; and paid specialists. Comments were largely consistent with the previous survey finding confirming that if the information was available and easy to find on GOV.UK then many of the calls would never be attempted. This, yet again, speaks strongly of the need to ensure that GOV.UK continues to expand its range as well as its search facilities to help in
See charts for comparison. ● Improvement since October 2015? – When prompted about any changes since the previous survey we received a range of comments that highlighted how much the employer helpline has been in demand and has resulted in a significant number of hours spent ‘hanging on the telephone’ by payroll professionals. The following mixed comments illustrate that the picture wasn’t bleak in all instances: ❍ “Prior to January 2016, my average call time to either the employee helpline or the employer helpline was 43 minutes. Since then it has reduced dramatically – in February it reduced to less than 15 minutes.” ❍ “I have rung the employer helpline twice during this period; my first call I was holding for 24 minutes, and my second call just two minutes.” ❍ “The most recent occasion was yesterday when I had to wait 20 minutes. Previously occasions were around the 30–40-minute mark.” ❍ “Have to wait for about an hour.” ❍ “On average 40 minutes to get through.” ❍ “Employer helpline has taken anywhere between 15 minutes and 50 minutes to get through.” A useful tip from a member highlights the importance of not being put off by a little bit of huffing and puffing if it is your aim to get a successful outcome from your call: “… the Debt Management (DM)
delivering good customer services. ● Satisfaction levels – We asked
respondents to rate their overall levels of satisfaction on the service received since October 2015, and registered a very slight increase on those returned for September.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2016 | Issue 23 10
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