The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has made available extra staff capacity to assist with call-centre queries, after the Standing Committee on Public Accounts called on it’s management to increase its employee capacity.
The UIF recently tweeted that it was overwhelmed by around 77 000 calls a day, with only 40 call-centre staff capacity and has a backlog of over 400 000 emails to attend.
Dear clients, our Call Centre experiences 77 000 calls per day against 40 agents per day. This leads to a long wait or calls not going through. We are looking at alternatives to assist all clients and thank you for patience. #UIF #WorkingForYou pic.twitter.com/KuMuaZZ2z3
— UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUND (UIF) (@UIFBenefits) October 29, 2020
UIF’s Acting Commissioner Marsha Bronkhorst says, “Our call centre is overburdened. It is a reality, especially with the COVID-19 TERS payments. We have entered into a short contract to get our call centre agents up to 300 and in addition to that we have made 825 people across the country able to answer all the inquiries that might come to them to help with password changes and basic things that we find are challenges in terms of finalising COVID-19 TERS benefits…”
“Across the country we have a huge number of people sitting ready to assist because we realise that the call centre can’t deal with the massive influx of inquiries that they have every day,” added Bronkhorst.
UIF COVID-19 TERS
Please read some of the below Frequently Asked Questions for employees regarding our #Covid19TERS benefits. #UIF #WorkingForYou pic.twitter.com/qPcRcJNgKI
— UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUND (UIF) (@UIFBenefits) November 1, 2020
