CIMM - IRCC’s Call Centre - Nov 25, 2020

Key messages

• Improving IRCC’s services, to make them timelier and less complicated, continues to be a key departmental priority and mandate commitment.
• To help improve immigration client services, Budget 2019 provided $43M to IRCC over two years beginning in 2019‑2020. This two-year investment significantly increased the number of IRCC client support agents so that enquiries from visitors, newcomers, Canadians, and others can be responded to more quickly.
• When COVID-19 disrupted call services, the Client Support Centre quickly moved to equip agents so that they could work remotely to answer client enquiries via telephone. For the period of April 1, 2020 to September 2020, the call answer rate at IRCC’s call centre was 42%.
• Email support to clients has continued throughout the pandemic. IRCC has seen an increase of 44% more emails between April 1, 2020 and September 2020 compared to the same period last year – of which, 52% of emails received a response within three business days, 87% received a response within five days.
• Since the start of COVID, the Client Support Centre has seen an increase in case-specific enquiries, as clients are seeking clarity on the status of their application and expected processing times.

Supplementary messages

Client Support Centre volumes

• In 2019-2020, IRCC’s Client Support Centre received 4.3 million calls (2.7 million callers requested to talk to an agent) and 997,000 email enquiries.
• The demand for support by email is growing every year, increasing 34% from 2018-2019 to 2019-2020. With respect to 2020-2021, email is expected to have an overall annual increase of an additional 50%.
• Supported by internal investments to make incremental improvements to client support technology and reduce the root causes of client enquiries, the Department increased the call answer rate to over 44% in 2019-2020 (from 25% in 2018-2019) and reduced email processing times to within 4 business days (from 10 business days in 2018-2019). Results of these investments can be seen in client satisfaction rates, with a 16% increase in overall satisfaction with IRCC’s Client Support Centre (from 49% in 2018 to 65% in 2019).

COVID-19 impact on the Client Support Centre

• The impact of COVID-19 on IRCC’s operations have heightened clients’ anxiety and they are seeking support from the Client Support Centre to obtain clarity on the status of their application.
• On March 19, 2020, the Centre’s phone services temporarily closed due to COVID-19. Between that time and April 25, 2020, IRCC acquired and deployed the necessary equipment and technology to allow Centre employees to work remotely and resume phone services with limited hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm EST) and staff. Email support to clients and Members of Parliament never stopped.
• As of September, 2020, 100% of the Centre agents are working remotely and the CSC has been able to return to its regular operating hours (8:00 am to 4:00 pm local time across the country).
• While the impacts of COVID and business resumption have increased the total volume of enquiries at the Centre, as of September 30 2020, 52% of emails continue to receive a response within 3 business days and 87% receive a response within 5 days.
• In addition, the call answer rate has consistently remained over 40%. Despite the continued impact of COVID on the Centre, IRCC is striving to continue to meet its Budget 2019 client support commitments.
• IRCC continues to look at ways to address the root causes of enquiries at the Centre so that it can maintain accessible and timely support for clients. We are also continuing to work to provide meaningful, timely and transparent updates to clients, particularly in regard to expected processing times for applications.
• The COVID business resumption plan commits to addressing clients in urgent and vulnerable situations first. Clients who are in these situations can continue to use the IRCC online web form to provide additional information and flag their situation to the Department.

COVID-19 impact on the Information Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators

• While telephone support for Members of Parliament and Senators was temporarily disrupted from March 18 to June 17, 2020, support by email continued.
• Information Centre calls are responded to within 20 minutes and emails receive a reply within 2 business days.
• The Information Centre has seen a 60% reduction in the number of enquiries for the period of April 2020 to September 2020 (or 43,000 cases, down from 108,000 during the same period last year).

Supporting facts and figures

Numbers may not add up due to rounding

• Budget 2019 funding of $43M for 365 additional FTEs over two years (157 FTEs in 2019-20 and 208 FTEs in 2020-21) will continue to be used for the rest of this fiscal year for the following activities:
  • Improving accessibility at the Client Support Centre (CSC): funding ensures that IRCC clients receive accessible and quality personalized client support through the channel of their choice. The funding ensures additional client support agents are available to respond to client enquiries to meet the published service standard of 50% of callers requesting an agent being able to reach an agent and a 3-day turnaround time for responding to emails.
  • While extended hours of operation were implemented in July 2019 at 10 high-volume local IRCC offices in Canada; since March 2020 (due to COVID-19), extended hours have not been offered.
• The following table provides the breakdown of resource by activities:

  By activity $ in million	2019-2020	2020-2021	Total
  Improving accessibility at the Call Service Centres	14.4	21.7	36
  Local office hours of operation	3.5	3.1	6.7
  Total	17.9	24.8	42.7

  FTE $ in million	2019-2020	2020-2021	Total
  Improving accessibility at the call service centres	134.1	182.3	316.4
  Local office hours of operation	22.4	25.8	48.2
  Total	156.5	208.1	364.6

• These investments are required given the significant increases in admission (temporary and permanent) the Department has experienced in the last years.

  Client Support Centre Data	2014-2015	2015-2016	2016-2017	2017-2018	2018-2019	2019-2020
  Client Calls Received from clients requesting to speak to an agent	3.31M	2.83M	2.43M	3.25M	3.71M	2.71M
  Annual Call Answer Rate	0.542	0.561	0.462	0.268	0.254	0.444
  Client Support Centre Agents (FTEs)	203	200	206	218	225	324
  Total client emails received				632K	747K	997K
  Average response time				16 business days	10 business days	4 business days

Background

• The call answer rate at the Centre began to steadily decline starting in 2012, when client support functions were eliminated from IRCC local offices as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan. The decline is primarily the result of rising call volumes – call volumes have increased with rising application volumes. As more people apply to visit or immigrate to Canada, there has been a corresponding rise in the need for client support services.
• Prior to the investment from Budget 2019, the number of Centre agents has stayed fairly consistent over time, despite rising call volumes and the need to deliver support by email as well as by telephone.
• In May 2019, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada tabled the Audit of Call Centres report. The report noted that callers had difficulty getting through to agents at government call centres and recommended that IRCC should improve access, set call centre service standards relevant to clients, and publish call centre performance results.

• Budget 2019 provided funding of $43M for 365 additional FTEs over two years (157 in 2019-2020 [for a total of 489 FTEs^{Footnote *}] and 208 FTEs in 2020-2021 (for total of 486 FTEs^{Footnote *}]) for Centre improvements. With this funding, the Department committed to a 50% call answer rate and an email response time of three business days by March 2021.

  Explanatory notes regarding FTEs: the total number of FTEs at the CSC on March 31, 2020, was 489 FTEs

• The 2019 IRCC Client Satisfaction Evaluation Survey, conducted prior to COVID-19, found that 30% of Centre callers said they were able to reach an agent the first time (up from 22% in 2017). More importantly, the Survey found an increase in client satisfaction with their Client Support Centre experience – a 16% increase from 2018 to 2019 (up from 49% to 65%).