Question Period Note: REGISTRATION AND AUTHENTICATION CALL CENTRE

How is Service Canada leveraging investments to improve access and reduce wait times in its Registration and Authentication Call Centre?

Digital service delivery is priority for Service Canada. This includes ensuring that clients can easily access their benefits online through My Service Canada Account (MSCA).

The Registration and Authentication (R&A) Call Centre is the single point of contact for client enquiries related to accessing with their MSCA. It ensures that the authorized person is accessing the appropriate information in a digital service delivery environment, supporting the integrity of the online authentication process.

Service Canada continues to explore opportunities and strategies to decrease call wait times.

In Budget 2023, the Government committed $30 million, over two years starting in 2023-2024, to maintain service levels at the R&A Call Centre and ensure that Canadians trying to access their My Service Canada Account can get the support they need, when they need it.

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Service Canada continues to explore opportunities and strategies to decrease call wait times. This callback functionality is expected to be implemented in the Fall 2023-24 in the R&A Call Centre. It is important to note that the callback functionality will support improvements to the client service experience.

The Registration & Authentication (R&A) Call Centre is the primary point of contact for client enquiries regarding My Service Canada Account (MSCA), National Student Loans Service Centre (NSLSC) account, Job Bank accounts, Canadian Government Annuities (CGA) and the Civil Service Insurance (CSI) programs.

In August 2020, as a response to the GCkey Cyberattack, the Department increased staffing of the R&A Call Centre to 130 agents to respond to the demand (from an average call volume of approximately 11,000 to 142,000 calls weekly), to support clients during this critical time. This one time increase in agents temporarily allowed the R&A Call Centre to better align its capacity with the call demand. This resulted in an improved performance and increase in calls answered in 2020-21.

Currently, R&A Call Centre demand is trending between 650,000 to 750,000 calls per year. In September 2021, the R&A Call Centre completed its migration to a call centre technology that allows a virtually 100% accessible environment where clients can queue to speak to an agent. While more people can get into the queue during peak periods, callers could experience wait times of more than an hour.

In 2023-24, as of the week ending August 25, 2023, the R&A Call Centre answered over 132,800 calls with an average annual wait time of approximately 29 minutes.

While the R&A Call Centre continues to find innovative ways to enhance the client experience, certain peak periods are expected to result in an influx of call volumes and longer wait times for Canadians.

In Budget 2023, the Government committed $30.4 million, over two years starting in 2023-24, to maintain service levels at the R&A Call Centre.

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