Audit report on Centrelink - massive wait times on phone

They needed an audit report to find this out? 

Anyone who's dealt with Centrelink would know that the wait times on the phone are diabolical. They reckon an average of 17 minutes, but we've had far worse than that. Try about 50 minutes. Or so long the phone battery goes flat. Or the phones are simply busy and you can't get through. On occasion it's taken more than a day just to get a hold of anyone there, and most of the time it's for something simple; like getting a form sent out that you can't get done online or even at the Centrelink office.

I was at the doctors the other day and he has to ring the dept of human services to write my happy pill prescription as I take so much, and even he had to wait a minute or so to get through to even them. We joked about that dreadful muzak they play on hold, brings back memories of sitting waiting endlessly listening to that crap.

According to the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) audit report released on Tuesday, almost a quarter of the 57 million phone calls made to Centrelink last year went unanswered. 

The report also revealed that Australians waited an average of almost 17 minutes for calls to be answered and around 13 million customers simply abandoned calls because they were tired of waiting. 

It was also noted that the average wait times reported to the government did not reflect the actual experience of many Centrelink customers, with 30 per cent claiming to have waited on hold for 30 minutes or more before speaking to a service officer. 

These wait times have significantly increased in recent years from an average of 3 minutes and 5 seconds in 2010–11 to the current average of 16 minutes – which is the benchmark agreed to with the government. 

The auditors calculated that Australians waited the equivalent of 143 years to speak to a Centrelink service officer in 2013-2014, only to hang up before their calls were answered. Add to that another 13.7 million calls that did not even make it to the point of being put on hold, after they were knocked out of the system or received a busy signal. 

The Audit of the Department of Human Service's (DHS) ‘Smart Centre’ system confirmed that the lengthy wait for calls to be answered is the number one complaint against the welfare agency. more   

It goes on to say that they're trying to move people to online services, which would be great if it worked. How many times have I tried to log in and the bloody site is down.