UK Visas and Immigration: Telephone Services

(asked on 15th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average length of time was for a telephone call to UK Immigration Services in each of the last three years.


Answered by
Caroline Nokes Portrait
Caroline Nokes
This question was answered on 25th March 2019

The UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) customer contact centres are in place to support customers seeking advice about making a visa related application and the options available to them based on their circumstance including navigating GOV.UK, guidance and immigration rules.
The customer contact centres can also help customers to get an update on their application if this is outside of the published service standards.

We constantly review the service delivery and our quality levels to ensure we are providing the right level of customer service and support to our customers.

The customer contact centres services delivered by Sitel UK LTD is one of a number of information channels available to applicants. For example, customers have access to the our Gov.uk website to access all relevant information at no cost.

From within the UK there is no charge for contacting UKVI by e-mail, whilst phone calls are charged at the caller’s standard network rate. Customers and agents who contact UKVI from outside the UK will be charged their standard network rate plus £1.37 per minute. A customer is only charged at the £1.37 per minute rate once they connect to an agent. We do not hold data on how a call was made (via Landline or Mobile)

The table(s) below shows the calls received by the Croydon Contact Centre (CCC); these are calls from Asylum support customers, DNA hotline and sponsors / educational establishments. All other customer calls are handled by Sitel and HGS; these figures are not available as they are commercially sensitive. Also outlined below is the average call length:

Average Call Length

CCC

SiTel

HGS

Overall With HGS

Overall Without HGS

2018

03:47

04:21

N/A

04:19

04:19

2017

03:36

04:19

04:09

04:11

04:12

2016

04:05

03:32

04:17

03:51

03:41

Calls Received/Demand

CCC

SiTel

HGS

2018

74094

2017

224273

2016

416541


The UK government believes it is right that those who use and benefit directly from the UK immigration system make an appropriate contribution towards meeting the costs.

Those who use the services from outside the UK are predominantly prospective customers and in many cases no application will be made and no application fee collected

Customers who use the services from within the UK will often already have an immigration status with UKVI and have already paid an immigration fee.
For applications made within the UK there is no charge for contacting us by e-mail, whilst phone calls are charged at the caller’s standard network rate


There are currently no plans to change the pricing structure for the current contact centre services.

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