Contact centre accuracy and service representatives training
Backgrounder
Commitment to accurate and reliable service
Canadians expect and deserve timely, reliable, and accurate service from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Supporting Canadians is a responsibility we take seriously.
Performance confirmed by quality monitoring
The CRA receives more than 30 million calls each year, and approximately 80% of these relate to taxpayer-specific accounts. According to the Agency’s National Quality Monitoring Program—which independently reviews more than 100,000 call recordings annually—our service representatives have provided accurate information 92% of the time and quality, professional, and efficient service 96% of the time this fiscal year. These findings are consistent with the Auditor General’s (AG) own review of personal account calls, which also confirmed a high degree of accuracy.
The CRA applies a structured, data-driven quality framework to assess contact centre performance. Through systematic call reviews, the Agency evaluates whether the information provided is accurate, complete, and professional, ensuring consistent service quality and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement. Each reviewed call is measured against detailed criteria focused on accuracy, completeness, professionalism, and compliance with CRA procedures. This approach ensures that Canadians receive clear, correct, and consistent information while helping the CRA identify training needs, reduce repeat calls, and improve the overall client experience.
Understanding the Auditor General’s findings
The AG’s report highlighted an issue with general enquiries, which represent roughly 20% of total calls the CRA receives, based on a test of 167 calls. Their test of 167 calls included 50 that concerned general enquiries from individuals. The AG found CRA responses to these 50 general individual tax enquiries had an accuracy rate of 17%; the Auditor General did not conclude 17% applied to all calls. General enquiries are inherently more challenging because they cover a wide range of topics that often depend on broad individual circumstances and evolving program rules, leaving less room for precise answers and increasing the need for informed judgment from service representatives on subjective scenarios.
While those findings do not reflect all contact centre interactions, we realize there is room for improvement, and we are actively working on that.
Focused training and continuous improvement
As part of our 100-Day Service Improvement Plan launched in September 2025, the CRA is strengthening training programs to improve accuracy and service consistency.
We’ve enhanced our approach to better serve Canadians by updating learning materials, refining evaluation criteria, and providing personalized coaching for our service representatives to ensure their responses are accurate, thorough, and tailored to people’s needs.
Dedicated service representatives, strong results
The CRA is proud of its dedicated contact centre employees, who support millions of Canadians every year—often during challenging moments like tax season. Their professionalism, skill, and empathy are key to our high accuracy results.
We remain firmly committed to continuous improvement, transparency, and service excellence. Canadians can be confident that when they contact the CRA, they are receiving accurate information delivered by well-trained and knowledgeable service representatives backed by a strong quality assurance system.
Get faster help from the CRA
With the Skip the Line – Get faster help from the CRA webpage, we are promoting digital services to make it easier for people to find reliable answers online. This resource promotes secure, self serve tools—such as the CRA account, the 24/7 GenAI chatbot beta, and online chat, empowering users to find answers in minutes.
By encouraging Canadians to use digital tools first, the Skip the Line initiative not only improves access and convenience but also frees up phone lines for more complex enquiries—enhancing service speed and fairness for everyone.