Between April 2014 and March 2014 17.8 million of the calls made to HMRC got the engaged tone or were left unanswered. That works out as 27.5% of the 64.7 million calls made! That’s a lot of unanswered questions…
The reasons for calling can range from changing address details to finding out if you have paid too much tax.
If you look at some of the monthly specifics, the numbers are even worse. In September, 13.7% of calls simply went unanswered and 20.8% heard the engaged tone and could not join a queue. This works out to only 65.5% of the calls actually being answered.
Lin Homer is the Chief Executive of HMRC and she said, “Despite our best efforts, our call performance hasn’t been up to scratch and we apologise to all those customers who have struggled to get through to us.”
Apparently there has already been investment in online services and in new equipment for the call centre. There will be 3,000 more staff in customer service roles after £45million is ploughed into the system. A new target of 80% of calls answered has been established. As a mountain of letters and forms accumulates and the tax credits deadline looms, HMRC are also shuffling 2,000 staff internally to deal with these issues.
Hopefully these plans will alleviate some of the pressure on their overworked staff and increase the level of customer service offered to taxpayers.
