Britain’s tax authority, HMRC, has denied running “deliberately poor” customer service. A parliamentary committee report found that nearly 44.000 customers were disconnected without warning last year after being left on hold for more than an hour.

 

In the most recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report The beleaguered government service is reported to have deteriorated further since the last report. HMRC chief executive Jim Harra says the commission’s claims about customer service are “completely unfounded”. Waiting times are said to have fallen by 17 minutes since April last year. The disconnections are said to be due to the phone platform being at maximum capacity. The PAC chairman says HMRC is “reaching new lows every year” in customer service.

“Contact center closed part of the year”

Another problem the tax office is grappling with is that of bad debt. The counter stood at £2023bn in 24-5, up from £3,2bn a year earlier. These are amounts that are being written off. Since HMRC launched a ‘digital-first’ strategy in 2010, criticism of the organisation has only increased.

In March last year, the agency announced that it would close its contact centre phone line between April and September, as it wanted people to do their tax online. The decision had to be reversed within 24 hours. In May this year, the average waiting time was almost 23 minutes. (BBC)

Customer Experience