Navan Road Office NEVER answers phones!

Ruthie-Roux

It isn`t just that they happen to be busy--I mean NEVER. I have been unemployed for thr guts of a year and never in all that time have they ever picked up a single call. It just rings and rings out. It is ridiculous to have to go all the way down to the office (I live a good bit away from it) and call in and queue up just to ask a simple question that could be answered over the phone.

Does anyone one know why this office point blank refuses to take calls?

Ruth (angry)

bladespin

Same can be said of most SW offices from what I see, Navan (town) haven't been answering phones as long as I can remember (was unfortunate enough to need their assistance in January 2009).

bryaner

bladespin wrote: »

Same can be said of most SW offices from what I see, Navan (town) haven't been answering phones as long as I can remember (was unfortunate enough to need their assistance in January 2009).

I can second that

uoluol

I would agree with you, SW offices are difficult to contact, but if you ever worked in one, you would realise it is just not possible to answer phones, deal with customers at counter and tackle the mountain of paperwork on your desk. If you think about it, you are not going to ignore a client at the counter to answer a phone. It really annoys me this issue, as the government quite rightly expect a level of service to be given to clients, but do not provide the resources for social welfare staff in order to provide this service.

January

That and for the guts of a year there has been a work to rule on which means they won't answer to phone as opposed to can't answer the phone!

bladespin

uoluol wrote: »

I would agree with you, SW offices are difficult to contact, but if you ever worked in one, you would realise it is just not possible to answer phones, deal with customers at counter and tackle the mountain of paperwork on your desk. If you think about it, you are not going to ignore a client at the counter to answer a phone. It really annoys me this issue, as the government quite rightly expect a level of service to be given to clients, but do not provide the resources for social welfare staff in order to provide this service.

It's possible alright, anyone working in customer service and say the same thing but they have to answer phones, they don't have the luxury of choosing not to.
Try a tech support call centre with one person holding a ten (yes 10) way call (good old gateway support), it can be done, if you can't do it you shouldn't be doing the job.

Ruthie-Roux

bladespin wrote: »

It's possible alright, anyone working in customer service and say the same thing but they have to answer phones, they don't have the luxury of choosing not to.
Try a tech support call centre with one person holding a ten (yes 10) way call (good old gateway support), it can be done, if you can't do it you shouldn't be doing the job.

+1

uoluol

No, it's not possible. I know, I have worked in a SW office. The work load has tripled in two years, no extra staff, in fact less staff. Try also working in an office that has such an antiquated system which allows only 4 lines, that is for all internal and external calls between 40 people. Coupled with the fact that even if all lines are busy, callers will not hear an engaged tone, they will just hear a ringing tone. It so frustrating, I often had to wait up to an hour to get an outside line. And to add to the mix, one phone shared between 3-4 staff. Now, that is the resources the dept expect their staff to work with. We have no fancy smancy telephone systems. We didn't even have an answering machine, which would enable clients to leave queries.

Believe it or not, the vast majority of local office staff do the job to the best of their ability. The resources supplied are totally inadequate - our computer systems are legacies from in house software designed in 1984 (think F10 this and ctrl F7) and only in the last year were PC's supplied to all staff. Not everyone has access to email as yet. For some reason SW is a very under resourced department, this tends to be the way with departments to give out money, as oppossed to taking it in.

You honestly have no idea how dejected and frustrating it feels working in a department that does not supply the backup to ensure that you can do your duty to the best of your ability. The staff and customers of SW deserve better, but the powers that be will not supply the back up.