Child Support Services Call Center Making a Difference, One Client at a Time
When you think of great customer service, what comes to mind? Customer service is defined as “the act of taking care of the customer's needs by providing and delivering professional, helpful, high quality service and assistance before, during, and after the customer's requirements are met. Customer service is meeting the needs and desires of any customer.”
For the Division of Child Support Services, our “customers” are custodial and non-custodial parents and the children involved. Ensuring their needs are met is always of utmost importance.
The Child Support call center is often the main point of contact for these families. Each month, approximately 80,000 calls come into the Division’s Interactive Voice System (IVR). Of those 80,000 calls, somewhere between 17,000 and 19,000 get filtered through the automated system to a call center representative.
Because the child support process can be frustrating at times, call center staff must be knowledgeable about every aspect of child support, which is no small task. Clients frequently commend call center staff for their knowledge and assistance.
One client stated, “[Your colleague] was wonderful, very patient and very helpful. It was a pleasure working with him. He was professional and caring throughout the call.”
Custodial and non-custodial parents, alike, are often impressed with the level of knowledge of call center staff.
One particular non-custodial parent had his account garnished for many weeks, but the payments were not making it to his case. After phone calls to the employer and subsequent follow up calls to him, the payments were identified and the situation was resolved.
“[Your colleague] was awesome, so nice and patient even in my difficult situation,” he said. “I felt so relieved to finally get my payment issue resolved and get the money to my child.”
There are two other teams operating out of the Call Center dedicated to providing the best customer service possible: the email correspondence and early intervention teams.
The email correspondence team is a small group dedicated specifically to child support-related correspondence. Receiving more than 100 emails per day, it works very hard to keep the response time for each email to 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.
The early intervention team is responsible for providing early intervention services to custodial and non-custodial parents. The primary role for this group is to “get ahead of the game.” Working in conjunction with the Attorney General’s office, this team will go to court hearings to aid clients at the onset of their case by providing information such as employment service referrals or information to community partners, depending on the need.
The Division of Child Support Services continually strives to improve its customer service. For more information on the programs and services provided, or for help with a child support case, please visit the Child Support Services page or contact Customer Service at (602) 252-4045 or toll free at (800) 882-4151.
By Misty Kaufman