Recommendation 16

HMRC said that it limits the number of callers that can join the call queue, which can have an impact on its call waiting time measure. Anyone not able to join the call queue is played a “busy message” and is forced to end the call. HMRC told us that in previous years it would play this message about 11% or 12% of the time. It has now reduced this to 5.5%, as its customers have told HMRC that they would prefer to wait in a queue for longer than keep calling back. HMRC said that these changes mean that it is not fair to compare average call waiting times year on year. Instead it is focusing on the proportion of customers who need to speak to an agent that get through to an agent the first time they call. HMRC has set itself a service standard of 85%, although is currently achieving 77%.24