Hi
has anyone come accross this situation before? I tried to make a telelphone claim for ESA with my clients (a couple) so advised this would require two separate phone calls as both entitled to ESA (conts).

Having spent 15 mins in a queue I finally got through at about 3.30 p.m.. we started going through the basics of the claim only to be told after about 10 mins that the claim would not be able to be completed as the call centre person had to finish his shift by 4.00 p.m. and was not allowed to go over this time.

He did apologise and knew it was not good customer care but could only suggest that I rang back to continue the claim by quoting the NINO. I refused to do this as was not prepared to spend another 10-15 mins or more just waiting to get through again.

He then agreed to cancel the whole claim and send a paper form out for completion for them to claim ESA (IR) as a couple. We would then have to contact again to make an ESA (conts) claim for the partner.This was because the computer would not issue 2 claim forms at once!

Upon return to the office I decided to try to make an online claim despite being told not to bother by the tele person as quote 'often claims come through with no information'. I did this only too find all it generates is a request for a call back to make the actual claim!

Think I will just print off paper forms from the online site in future.

I just find it incredible that someone can just end a call part way through without a handover because management have told them they must clock off by a certain time!

Anyway rant over!

Alan

it has to be more economical to make claim forms available (like wot the law says!)

what evidence is there that 'control of the gateway' achieves any useful purpose, that couldn't be achieved without the drawbacks of 'call centre hell'?

what is the real cost?

I had some experiences of this. A few years ago the DWP were refusing to send out claim forms , saying that IS and IB could only be claimed over the phone. I wrote to the local manager pointing out that this was in fact unlawful and got a reply that said something on the lines of ' of course claimants can have a paper form to 'initiate' their claim' which turned out to mean that the contents of the form would be ignored and the claimant would be rung back to make the claim. I challenged this again but never got a reply!

I recently tried to get hold of an IS form for someone who couldn't cope with the 'phone call and was told that it was impossible to have paper form, when I contacted the local customer services manager he said that this wasn't the case and the claimant was perfectly entitled to have apaper form if that was the best way of them making a claim (although he did say paper claims might take longer to get processed) and sent one to me by the next post!

I think this highlights the issues of what might be termed 'training Issues' with call centres as compared to staff with a clear knowledge of the laws and regulations. I would be interested to know whether the downloaded form was processed or it just resulted in a ring back.

Fri 21-May-10 09:50 AM by nevip

"compared to staff with a clear knowledge of the laws and regulations". Steady, Pete!

Within the last year I have downloaded paper IS claim forms for both my self and colleagues to use when JC+ have failed or refused to send out forms when requested over the phone. These have had varying success when submitted, the problem being that they are often not going onto the main computer system because they are on the basis of incapacity for work and the system can apparently only handle ESA claims nowaday, and so they get handled "clerically" - which basically means if you get through to the call centre they can find no trace of it. This is over come by either getting someone who actually knows what they're talking about on the phone or calling your friendly local DM.

Regarding ESA forms - often have got these sent out and the call centre have usually been pretty good about this, maybe because I was usually asking for them for cancer patients who were in hospital. But there are not two forms - like JSA, both con and ib claims are done on the one form. This is because like JSA, ESA is one benefit. However, the JC+ call centre staff often don't understand this and I have had long and convoluted conversations explaining this to them, and that one form of ESA does not exclude a claim for another, because in fact it is a claim for both.

To follow on:
I did get a call back today regarding the on-line claim and as expected they wanted to take a full telephone claim but as the customer was not with me they couldn't do this.
After a discussion regarding having to complete two ESA forms so both members of the couple can claim conts based benefit, they advised that unfortunately they had no knowledge of how benefits were calculated or the rates of payment and therefore could not help me!

But don't worry they do have a script to follow everytime you call -even if you know exactly what you are doing they still have to follow the script word for word, and if the computer says no, well it must be correct!

i find them almost impossible to deal with. i've never had to wait less than 10 minutes to get through and then i'll often get given incorrect or conflicting information from them.

yesterday i contacted them by phone to make a new claim for a tenant from her home. she's extremely nervous and i had twice requested last week that a paper form might be better for her, only to twice be told it HAD to be done by phone.

so after getting 5 minutes into the phone claim i was then told that due to her circs (there's an appeal going through from a previous claim) a computer claim couldnt be made and they'd have to send a paper claim form out..

why then had the 2 previous staff sdaid that they couldnt, even though they had exactly the same info about my client?

and why the DWP think that phone claims are better is beyond me. its only becuase i'm paid to do so that i have the patience to sit and wait 15 minutes juts to be connected, oh that and because work pay for my calls. i can easily see why many claimants give up after being held waiting for so long