§ Mr. ToddTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the average(a) telephone response time and (b) failure rates were of calls to the British Cattle Movement Service in each month of this year to date. [125674]
§ Ms QuinThe average amount of time that callers to the BCMS helpline have had to wait between making a call and speaking to a operator, and the number of abandoned calls are as follows:
Average response time (seconds) Number of abandoned calls January 70 3,210 February 42 1,638 March 36 2,132 April 76 2,967 May 99 4,549 The number of abandoned calls equates to about 15 per cent. of all calls received by the helpline. Most of these calls would have been made during peak periods.
The increase in May corresponds with the Spring calving peak. In addition, some experienced call centre staff have recently had to be re-deployed to other priority work and new staff are currently undergoing training.
The BCMS is considering an industry request for changes to the call centre work patterns with a view to increasing the number of staff during peak hours. This would result in off-setting reductions in opening hours at night and weekends.