***Back to Voice of the Customer later this week – my job for the past couple of weeks has been trying to get my unemployment payments sorted.***
I allude to this below, but want to put it here so that it is very clear: this is not AT ALL about the people doing the frontline work to get claims processed and payments certified and directed where they need to go. As far as I can tell, all of those people are doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible.
Hi, Division of Unemployment [I like to keep things friendly and casual if I can] – I’ve been trying for the past few weeks to navigate the Kafkaesque process of getting the money due me. And based on your Twitter feed and the posts on Reddit (look for [New Jersey] in the post subject) , I am far from alone. But this is not about that.
I get that the system is completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of claims. I understand that things might take longer to process than they normally would. I am not surprised when the system crashes on occasion. I think that responding to incoming emails with a potentially useful form reply is actually a great idea – those replies are well-crafted and contain lots of good information. BUT.
Those prefab emails, while they will be useful to lots of people, don’t contain the answers to everyone’s questions. To send those emails from an address that doesn’t accept follow-up questions is so incredibly frustrating and rude. To add insult to injury, the particular issue I am experiencing* is not listed anywhere in any of the FAQs or instructions on the NJ DOL website. But every time I send an email, I get another useless-to-me autoresponse, with no way to actually connect with a human who might be able to help me.
I’ve also tried to call [pause for laughter], and have been unable to get through. This is not unexpected, and I’m not upset that I’m among the many, many people who cannot get through. Really and truly, I do understand the magnitude of the situation and the limited resources of the DOL. What does upset me is that, after I listen to the unnecessarily lengthy recorded message recommending that I file my claim online (I did), assuring me that the DOL is doing everything they can to support unemployed workers, and so on and so forth, I am transferred to a message that says – no matter what time I call during your business hours – “Welcome to the Reemployment Call Center. Due to the high volume of calls waiting, we cannot take your call at this time. If you need to speak with an agent please call back on the next business day.” Are you kidding me with this???
First, what I think you mean to do is thank me for calling, not welcome me to you hanging up on me. I know it’s a little thing, but honestly, it just rubs me the wrong way, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be irritating people more than you have to right now. Second, and more important, how is it possible that between 7:39 and 7:40, which is when the message changes from “we’re closed” to “call back tomorrow”, that you have received so many phone calls that you know for sure no one will be available to talk to anyone else until tomorrow? Are you making people hold all day? Because that is not something I’ve seen commented on and I’m pretty sure it would have been, given how distraught people are from not being able to get answers from your department. Is there no hold queue at all? If that’s the case, then people should be trying to call throughout the day, not pushed off to the next day. I understand that you may be trying to control volume that way, but come on. Don’t make spurious claims that no one will be available for a full 24 hours when you and I both know that’s not true.
Listen, I’m not expecting miracles here. It would be really great if I could get paid the amount you’ve told me you’re going to pay me. It would be acceptable if you would just tell me why it’s not happening yet. It would even be understandable if the answer is “we don’t know what’s causing this, but we’re working through claims with this issue, please be patient.” What is unacceptable is that this is a known issue that remains unaddressed in any form on your website, and that those of us experiencing this issue have no way to actually contact a real person to find out what is happening. There are other large blocks of claimants with different known issues that are encountering similar frustration, too.
The system that you have set up to deal with this crisis is isolating, uninformative, and discourteous. You are doing not only claimants a huge disservice, but also your employees, who by all accounts are working very hard and moving things along as quickly as they can. I urge you to take a look at the systems you have in place, and work to make them as user-friendly as possible. Here are some suggestions:
- When you see hundreds or thousands of people asking about the same issue, add that issue to your FAQ, even if you don’t have a definitive answer. Don’t just pretend it’s not happening.
- I read that one of the stumbling blocks to hiring more people for processing is that claim information is sensitive and the systems are difficult to learn. That’s not unreasonable. What you can do is free up people who know how to handle those systems for more processing/fixing of claims by hiring frontline customer care workers who can answer emails, direct people to the information they need, and offer reassurances. It’s likely that there will still be a percentage of incoming emails that needs someone with access to the system, but if you set up a multi-tier support system (think tech support!) you’ll relieve some of the pressure on your top tier people while providing better service to claimants.
- When a claim or certification triggers a message that indicates the claimant needs to speak with a person (mine says, “If you do not know why your claim is not payable, please call your nearest Reemployment Call Center”), instead of throwing them into the pool and making them try get through to you against astronomical odds), let them schedule a call or at the very least, schedule one for them and let them know when to expect the phone to ring.
- Better yet, open up a live chat system, just for the people getting that messaging from the system. If a chat takes more than a few minutes, or the issue is one that can’t be easily handled and/or explained, that’s when you refer it to your top tier claims people. Ideally, by scheduling a call or forwarding the chat transcript to the upper support tier for an email followup, not by telling them they need to call in via the overwhelmed phone lines.
- Finally, fix your language. Don’t welcome people in the same breath you tell them you’re unavailable. Don’t tell the governor that all of the people not getting paid yet are the self-employed folks waiting for PUA – something that is patently untrue. Either answer everyone on Twitter, or ignore everyone – don’t pick and choose based on the positivity of the comment.
Thanks for reading, and considering how you can best serve the people of New Jersey. Please feel welcome to reach out if there is anything I can do to help you out with providing great customer care to your claimants.
*The issue I’m experiencing is that my claim has been approved and I have been assigned a weekly benefit amount, but every week when I certify I receive a message that my “claim is not payable at this time.” I have no appointments or interviews outstanding, nor have I been contacted about adjudication. Hundreds of other people seem to be experiencing the same issue. It’s pretty clearly systemic, which is not unreasonable, but it’s not being addressed anywhere, which is most definitely unreasonable.
