Service Improvement Request — Contact Centre Reporting
Background
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) operates general enquiries contact centres to help callers with tax, benefit, and business-related tax questions. Measuring and reporting on performance metrics is key to ensuring that contact centres meet their goals for availability and efficiency. Therefore, we analyzed the CRA’s new Continuous Service Improvement page.Footnote 1
Based on information provided on the web page, the CRA’s target is to answer 70% of unique callers. “Unique callers” refers to the distinct number of callers, identified by their phone numbers, who contacted the CRA within a given week.
As of November 2025, the CRA had exceeded its target by answering 84% of unique callers. By January 2026, this percentage had risen to 95%.
This high performance highlights CRA’s progress, but it also points to areas where the CRA can enhance its reporting transparency and methodology to make sure it can use the data to drive further improvements.
Issues
Ambiguity in metrics
The CRA currently reports on “unique callers answered,” rather than the percentage of calls answered within the CRA’s service standard of 15 minutes. This metric does not fully reflect taxpayers’ concerns, such as wait times or the ability to speak with a live agent.
Accuracy of agent responses
- The CRA’s contact centres have been facing criticism for inaccurate responses to non-account-specific enquiries, with the Office of the Auditor General’s 2025 report showing only 17% of responses to general individual tax questions were accurate. While the CRA shares “Call accuracy” data on its Continuous Service Improvement web page, it lacks a clear target and transparency on how it is assessing performance. Further, its accuracy goal is not publicly stated, reducing accountability.
- The CRA reports only annual data. This limits the tracking of monthly or quarterly progress, which could hinder improvement.
Transparency
- For “Answering your calls” the CRA’s methodology groups results from multiple enquiry lines together (Individual, Business, and Benefits), which reduces transparency about the individual service performance of each one.
- The CRA’s reporting does not show how it is improving, or falling short, nor does it compare current results to previous periods. This lack of context means that readers do not know if the CRA’s performance is getting better or worse.
- At a quick glance, it is difficult for visitors to assess how the CRA is performing against its targets based on the way it is presenting information on the Continuous Service Improvement web page. To make it visually evident, the CRA could use icons such as: ❌
- It is unclear when updates to the information on the CRA’s web pages take place. As well, the information may not fully align with what taxpayers may want to know, such as average wait times and total calls answered, calls redirected to automated services, or calls abandoned.
Request
The Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson has requested that the CRA enhance its contact centre reporting on its Continuous Service Improvement web page by taking the following actions:
Enhancing reporting metrics
- Breakdown “Answering your calls” performance metrics by enquiry line (Individual, Business, and Benefits).
- Include additional data points such as total calls, calls served, calls abandoned, average wait time, target wait time, and calls redirected to automated services.
Clarifying reporting frequency
- Specify a consistent schedule for updating contact centre reporting (e.g., weekly updates every Monday).
Focusing on accuracy
- Change the data period from fiscal year to monthly or quarterly for call accuracy, include the methodology and specify a target.
By implementing this request, the CRA can improve service quality, maintain public trust, and address emerging challenges.