Social Security Experience Panels: communicating by phone

Call lengths

Once respondents were speaking to an operator, we wanted to understand how long they felt they could speak on the phone.

More than seven in ten of respondents (73 per cent) said they could speak for at least 10 minutes and more than half (51 per cent) could speak for up to 20 minutes. Twenty per cent of respondents told us they could speak for more than 30 minutes, but less than one in ten (9 per cent) could speak for longer than 45 minutes.

Table 15: How long would respondents feel comfortable talking on the phone (n=144)

Sometimes calls to the agency may take longer to resolve than the caller feels able to stay on the phone for. In these circumstances, we asked respondents what they would want to happen next.

Almost six in ten respondents (57 per cent) said they would rather arrange a time for the agency to call them back. Just over one in ten (11 per cent) said they wanted the call to finish as quickly as possible, and less than two in ten (16 per cent) wanted to agree to call the agency back when they felt able.

Table 16: What should happen if the call is longer than you can speak on the phone for*^[14]