CRA business-inquiries phone line gets a C-

Third time isn’t a charm for the CRA’s business inquiries phone line. As part of its red tape awareness week, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has conducted its third secret shopper evaluation of CRA’s call centre, giving it a grade of C-minus.

Read: CRA tweaks process for accessing online tax info of businesses

Here’s the breakdown of the grade:

• Accountability (A+). CFIB saw a laudable increase in agents providing their name and agent identification number.
• Accuracy of information (D-). Only 69% of inquiries resulted in complete and accurate answers. This is a decrease from the 2012 survey, where 76% all responses were complete. A third of callers are still receiving incorrect or insufficient information.
• Connecting to an agent (F). The lacklustre evaluation was mostly due to the number of calls that didn’t reach a CRA agent — nearly 30%. On many occasions, the callers simply couldn’t get past the busy signals. The number of calls that were unsuccessful at reaching an agent is up 50% since 2012.
• Wait time (B+). Once in the queue, callers waited only two minutes on average, which is the goal set out by the CRA service standard.
• Agent professionalism (C-). While the vast majority of agents tried their best to answer questions, some put little effort into answering clearly and correctly. Some agents simply read the answer off the website, while others directed the caller to the webpage without providing a verbal answer.

“The CRA helpline needs to find ways to offer better service to business owners,” says CFIB vice-president of national affairs, Monique Moreau, in a release. “We do applaud the government’s investments in the call centre from budget 2016 but encourage them to continue making good customer service a priority.”

Also read:

CRA to tax registered investment fees paid from open accounts

Help your immigrant client face the taxman

CRA may be watching clients’ social media

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.