CIMM – Client Services and Support – November 29, 2022
Key Messages
The pandemic has led to increased complexity, anxiety and uncertainty for clients, leading to a significant increase in the volume of calls and emails at IRCC’s Client Support Centre, compared to pre-COVID levels.
Clients are looking for reassurance. The compounding effects of the pandemic and humanitarian crises on our inventories have led to a backlog of applications and impacted our processing times. This had increased the need from clients for information about our programs and services, their ability to travel, constant updates on the status of their application and processing times, or support during emergency situations.
The funding investment announced in Budget 2022 has allowed IRCC to stabilize capacity at the Client Support Centre, on a permanent basis. This helps respond to the growing volume of client enquiries and, improve tools and technology aimed at ensuring timely client support of those looking to come to Canada and contribute to its economic recovery.
Supplementary Messages
Budget 2022
As services “go digital”, the support offered by the Client Support Centre continues to bridge the gap by providing clients with both a telephone and online option (through e-mail – primarily via an online Webform) for technical assistance and reassurance to navigate the new services.
Budget 2022 announced funding of $187.3 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, with $0.7 million in remaining amortization and $37.2 million ongoing, to IRCC to improve capacity at the Client Support Centre (CSC) to respond to a growing volume of client enquiries and includes:
$50.9 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, with $0.7 n in remaining amortization, to stabilize client support technology and tools; and,
$136.5 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, and $37.2 million ongoing, to address higher demand on client support services.
Impact of COVID-19
When faced with a humanitarian crisis situation, the IRCC Client Support Centre becomes a natural and critical stop gap to address our organizational resiliency to facilitate service, simply because of the direct contact it has with clients on the front line. In that context, the number of enquiries received at the Client Support Centre typically increases in those situations as clients want to obtain information about any delay in processing their applications and ongoing service disruptions related to IRCC programs and services.
At the same time, the disruptions caused by the pandemic served to accelerate innovations IRCC already had in development, such as introducing more digitally enabled application processes and virtual client services.
On February 3, 2022, IRCC introduced a new Permanent Residence Application Status Tracker for family class spousal, common law, and dependent clients, allowing them to easily track the status of their application information online. IRCC plans to expand the Application Status Tracker to additional lines of business by the end of March 2023. These include:
(Express Entry) Canadian Experience Class (CEC);
(Express Entry) Federal Skilled Worker Class (FSW);
(Express Entry) Federal Skilled Trade Class (FST);
(Express Entry) Provincial Nominee Program (PNP);
Temporary Resident Study Permit (SP) visa;
Temporary Resident Work Permit (WP) visa;
Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) or Permanent Resident Card issuing and renewal.
Ministerial Centre For Members Of Parliament And Senators
IRCC offers dedicated support to Members of Parliament and Senators via telephone and email through the Ministerial Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators.
In order to allow for continued support to clients affected by recent humanitarian crises (Afghanistan and Ukraine), the internal target set for the email service has been changed to 10 business days.
IRCC has been modernizing its services at the Ministerial Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators (MCMPS), co-developing an online appointment-based system with MP and Senator offices. The suite of new Liaison Services, including the online appointment system, were implemented to all MP and Senator offices on October 31, 2022, and currently offers 200 hours of available appointments per day.
The changes eliminate the lengthy wait times MP and Senator offices spent on the phone earlier in 2022 trying to reach the MCMPS while still offering the same level of support. In its first full week of implementation, Liaison Services offered more than 850 hours of service – an increase over an average of 700 hours a week offered to MP offices during the same period in 2021.
Currently, the MCMPS offers approximately 1000 hours of support to MP/Senator offices weekly. This allows MPs, Senators and their staff, to have more consistent, predictable and reliable support from IRCC which helps them better serve their constituents.
As of November 25, 2022, 345 different offices have been served by Liaison Services, (i.e., completed or confirmed appointments within the next two weeks).
IRCC continues to make improvements based on feedback from MP and Senator offices, such as providing additional hours to support offices experiencing higher demand, introducing variable appointment lengths and sending reminder emails ahead of appointments to reduce cancelled or missed appointments.
Support for Global Crises (Afghanistan and Ukraine)
In 2021-22, IRCC launched dedicated client service channels to support those affected by the situations in Afghanistan (August 2021) and Ukraine (February 2022). These channels receive a significant amount of enquiries for which IRCC has reassigned resources from other units to support.
Supporting Facts And Figures
Client Enquiries At The Client Support Centre
From April 1 to October 31, 2022, the Client Support Centre received:
6.6M telephone enquiries;
1.5M email enquiries; and
258K enquiries at the MCMPS.
For the week ending October 28 2022, the global call answer rate (regular operations and dedicated channels) at the CSC has improved to 22.8%.
Intake volumes and performance at the CSC’s dedicated crisis support channels for Afghanistan and Ukraine for the current fiscal year until the end of October 2022 were as follows:
172K telephone enquiries and 123K email enquiries; and
Its performance (or call answer rates) for both crises lines was 66% (for Afghanistan) and 77% (Ukraine).
Hiring At The Client Support Centre
IRCC has been able to hire a number of FTEs with previous and current Budget funding. A summary to date is below:
Budget 2019 allowed IRCC to hire additional 176 FTEs at the CSC for two years.
Budget 2021 funding allowed IRCC to retain these FTEs (176) temporarily and hire 61 new FTEs for three years (a total of 237 FTEs).
Through Budget 2022, IRCC will permanently stabilize resources (237 FTEs) at the CSC that were the direct result of temporary Budget 2019 and 2021 funding, as well as hire an additional 107.6 incremental FTEs.
Background
Client Support Centre Operations
Located in Montréal, IRCC’s Client Support Centre provides personalized, human assisted, client support for clients seeking information, case status, technical support and other services through three primary channels: telephone (in-Canada only), email (received primarily via an online Webform), and the MCMPS. It also currently has a line dedicated to Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Live agent telephone support is offered to clients located in Canada, coast to coast, during business hours, and touchtone self-service for general information and simple case status is available through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system 24/7. In-Canada and overseas clients can contact the Client Support Centre via an online Webform.
The Client Support Centre also provides vital support for the Department’s processing offices by:
Acting as the single window for clients to obtain personalized service by telephone or by Webform;
Collecting and reporting on trends, client feedback and issues related to IRCC programs and services;
Functioning as an intermediary to address limitations with existing client-facing digital tools (e.g., uploading documentation for applications where the client cannot do so themselves);
Referring high profile and urgent cases for appropriate action as well as offer support for sensitive cases tied to unique circumstances (e.g., privacy breach); and,
Providing specialized services in response to domestic and global events (e.g., Afghanistan, air disaster PS752, Fort McMurray wildfires, and Operation Syrian Refugees).
Table depicting intake volumes at the Client Support Centre:
