Follow-up Audit Report on the Effectiveness of the Child Support Helpline of the Administration for Children’s Services

1Transferred for operator assistance—includes all calls that were not disconnected by system.

This is a follow-up audit to determine whether the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has implemented the six recommendations made in a previous audit of the Child Support Helpline of the ACS Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). In this report, we discuss the six recommendations from the prior audit in detail, as well as the current status of each recommendation.

In Fiscal Year 2001, our office conducted an audit to evaluate whether the OCSE Child Support Helpline (Helpline) was in compliance with the Citywide Customer Service Initiative, which set a telephone standard requiring calls to be answered in three rings or less, with a hold time of not more than two minutes after calls are answered. The audit also determined whether the Helpline was achieving its mission of providing accurate and useful telephone information to callers. The audit found a number of weaknesses. Of 147 calls made by auditors to the Helpline requesting operator assistance, 99 (67%) were disconnected by the Helpline because the system had insufficient resources (staffing, system capacity) to handle the volume of calls received. In regard to the Helpline’s Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system, calls transferred from the hold-queue to operators’ lines could not be sent back to the queue if operators were unavailable. As a result, those calls remained in limbo unless the operators returned or the callers hung up. In addition, there was evidence that the Helpline staff was not being used efficiently. OCSE did not ensure that the 14 available operator stations were fully staffed during all hours that operator assistance was provided. Finally, the audit found that the Helpline did not ensure that there were enough operators on the Helpline to assist those callers who were still on hold when the Helpline operator assistance ended at 5:00 p.m.

Of the six recommendations we made in the previous audit, OCSE implemented one, partially implemented three, and was unable to implement two. The six recommendations and their status are as follows:

• "Increase the number of operators on the Helpline to shorten the hold time for callers who opt to speak to an operator. Also, increase the size of the hold-queue so that calls are not disconnected when operator assistance is requested."

• "Attempt to increase callers’ use of the automated attendant. To accomplish this, ACS should:"

• "Conduct a survey of callers who opt to speak with an agent and walk-in customers to determine why they did not use the automated attendant."
• "Based on the information obtained from the survey, modify the automated attendant to address the concerns raised by Helpline callers."

• "Program safeguards in the ACD system to prevent calls from being lost if operators neglect to put their lines in the ‘not ready’ mode. Such safeguards might include a system default in which the system puts an operator’s line in ‘not ready’ mode if a call transferred to that line goes unanswered for five rings or more. The system would then transfer the unanswered call back to the hold-queue to be answered by the next available operator."

• "Modify the ACD system so that total call volume to the Helpline is counted and properly categorized, including calls requesting operator assistance, so that the agency can properly determine workload."

• "Allocate staff based on workload figures to provide optimum coverage during Helpline hours, with a concentration on periods with the heaviest volume. To accomplish this, the agency should consider limiting the use of flex time. For example, the agency could assign operators, on a rotating basis, to work on the Helpline at set hours to ensure that there are an adequate number of operators (1) when the Helpline’s operator assistance feature opens at 8:30 a.m., and (2) to handle the remaining calls requesting operator assistance when the feature closes at 5:00 p.m."

• "Analyze, on an ongoing basis, operator efficiency in answering calls requesting operator assistance and take steps to improve efficiency where feasible (e.g., hire more operators, expand or simplify choices available through automated attendant to minimize the number of callers requesting operator assistance)."

In this follow-up audit we found that OCSE has made some improvements in the Child Support Helpline system by hiring more operators and increasing the size of the hold-queue. As a result, more calls are answered by operators and more calls requesting operator assistance are accepted in the ACD system. In addition, OCSE has improved the Helpline’s overall efficiency since the previous audit in regard to the number of calls answered per operator and the number of calls accepted per operator station. However, there are areas that still need improvement. The percentage of calls abandoned by callers has increased. Based on our calls to the Helpline, we found many of the same weaknesses that emerged in the previous audit, albeit to a lesser degree. Table I, below, shows a comparison of calls we made during the previous and follow-up audit.

Total # of Calls	147	71
Disconnected when Operator Assistance Requested	99	67%	17	24%	(43%)
Transferred for Operator Assistance1	48	33%	54	76%	43%
Immediately Transferred to an Operator’s Line	3	36
Place in Hold Queue Before Being Transferred to Operator’s Line	45	18
On Hold more than 2 minutes	41	91%	10	56%	(35%)
When Call Transferred to an Operator’s Line:
Picked up by Operator within 30 rings	33	69%	10	19%	(50%)
Not Picked up by Operator within 30 rings	15	31%	44	81%	50%

We found that OCSE did not make the necessary changes to the ACD system that would make it easier to assist callers and help OCSE identify the true workload involving calls requesting operator assistance. Moreover, the agency did not always use its operators efficiently; the operator stations were staffed at only 77 percent capacity on average during our observations. As a result, a high percentage of calls that are made to the Helpline are still not being answered. During the course of the follow-up audit, we made 71 calls to the Helpline requesting operator assistance. Of those 71 calls, 17 (24%) were disconnected when we requested operator assistance. In addition, 44 (81%) of the remaining 54 calls were allowed to ring at least 30 times (approximately three minutes) once they were transferred to the operator lines.

To address the issues that still exist, we are making the following recommendations, some of which we made in our earlier audit. ACS should:

• Require that coordinators and supervisors monitor operators’ lines to ensure that operators do not neglect to put their lines in "not ready" mode when they leave their stations.
• Devise a method to compile and analyze data regarding unsuccessful attempts of callers to obtain operator assistance. This information could be used to help determine the actual volume of calls requesting operator assistance and to identify areas where improvement is needed regarding Helpline’s efficiency in answering those calls.
• Allocate staff assignments based on workload figures (determined upon implementation of recommendation #2) to provide optimum coverage during Helpline hours, with concentration on periods with the heaviest volume. To accomplish this, the agency should consider both limiting the use of flextime and altering the lunchtime schedule. For example, the agency could assign operators, on a rotating basis, to work on the Helpline at set hours to ensure that there are an adequate number of operators (1) when the Helpline operator assistance feature opens at 8:30 a.m., and (2) to handle the remaining calls requesting operator assistance when the feature closes at 5:00 p.m.
• Continue to analyze, on an ongoing basis, operator efficiency in answering calls requesting operator assistance and take steps to improve efficiency where feasible.
• When funding becomes available, conduct a survey of Helpline callers to ascertain the demand for making operator assistance available during evening hours (e.g., 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., or 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.) for those persons who work during the hours that the Helpline currently provides operator assistance. If the feedback is positive, ACS should consider conducting a pilot study to determine whether expanding operator assistance to evening hours materially reduces the number of abandoned calls.