Centrelink wants new software to learn why it annoys customers

The Department of Human Services is planning to introduce a customer experience measurement system to help resolve discontent with its suite of service offerings.

Last week it called for commercial-off-the-shelf technology to collect insights and better understand the pain points across Medicare, Centrelink and Child Support interactions.

Customer satisfaction continues to be a bugbear across the three master programs, with the department missing its own performance target of 85 percent over the last three financial years.

Last year just over 75 percent of social security and welfare recipients and 83.7 percent Medicare customers reported satisfaction with the service, though both have improved steadily over the last two years.

Much of this displeasure stems from notoriously long call centre waiting times – represented by the department as ‘time to receive service’ – and ‘ease of access’.

For child support services, the department’s performance fell more than 10 points to 74.5 percent last year – likely the result of ongoing problems with the rollout of its new IT system.

In light of this, the department wants a “multi-channel customer survey capability” that allows it to “seek and collect measurable customer sentiment” after contact with a customer.

This sentiment would then be distilled, visualised and mapped “in a customer journey map format provided through individual and aggregate dashboards” to provide better visibility of where “staff need to take further action”.

While the department wants the solution to be in place for the next 10 years, it is proposing an initial work order for a six month trial period. This is largely down to the fact it has “only sought budget and spending approval”.

The department said the trial would be conducted “through a single survey delivery channel to reach an anticipated maximum of 400,000 end-user customers over a three month period”.

The department is open to having the solution delivered as-a-service, but is partial to a solution hosted within the department’s information systems environment.

There is also a preference for a system that can integrate with the department’s existing suite of gateways (IVR system gateway, myGov message gateway and SMS gateway), as well as its virtual assistants.