IRCC Minister Transition Binder 2021: Client Service

Background

• Each year, millions of people from around the world submit applications or requests to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
• Applications submitted to IRCC can have life-changing impacts for clients who need IRCC’s authorization to visit friends or family, be reunited with loved ones, study, work, or start a new life in Canada.
• In some cases, IRCC has longstanding relationship with clients – for example, those who start as a temporary resident, then become a permanent resident, followed by obtaining Canadian citizenship and acquiring a Canadian passport.
• Clients expect support:
  • Before they apply – to understand the rules
  • During the application process – to ensure they are doing it right
  • While they wait for a decision – to understand what is happening now
  • After they have received a decision – to understand what happens next

IRCC strives for a culture of service excellence, ensures employees have access to client insights, acts to understand what is behind client behaviour, facilitates direct access to clients to better understand their needs, and makes sure all clients have access to services.

Client Service Resources

IRCC provides a wide range of services depending on client needs

General Information

• IRCC offers a range of self-serve options to obtain general information on its programs and services via multiple online resources.

Personalized Information

• Clients can also obtain personalized information through four key channels:
  • Online resources
  • By email
  • By phone
  • In person^Footnote1

Online Resources – Quick Answers for Clients

Website – the first stop for clients

• 2019 – 213 million visits.
• 2020 – 206 million visits (3.2% decrease – likely due to COVID).
• 80% of users find what they’re looking for.
• 83% of users understand the information on the website.

Social Media

• Platforms: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
• In 2020-2021, IRCC communications agents responded to over 71,000 questions on social media, a 40% increase from the previous year.

Quaid – chatbot

• Quaid, an artificial intelligence chatbot, can answer approximately 80% of questions independently, without human intervention.
• Quaid answered over 500,000 questions between March 2020 and December 2020.

With hundreds of millions of web visits a year and hundreds of thousands of client questions answered using social media and an artificial intelligence agent, clients can easily and quickly get answers they need.

Phone and Email Enquires are Growing

Client Support Centre

• The Montréal-based Client Support Centre provides personalized telephone support to in-Canada applicants as well as a 24/7 self-serve interactive voice response telephone system.
• It also offers support to clients during emergency situations (i.e. Afghanistan, wildfires, Flight PS-752, etc.)

In 2020-2021

• 4.2 million calls were received, with 2.6 million (62%) of those callers asking to speak to an agent. A total of 6 million calls are expected in 2021-2022.
• 40% of calls were answered. With higher call volumes, the answer rate has decreased to 35% in the first quarter.
• Over 1.5 million client enquiries were received through the online web form, up 53% from the year before.

While temporary funding has enabled the Client Support Centre to maintain staff levels, it continues to receive more requests than it can respond to.

Pandemic Impact

• Following a five-week closure at the beginning of the pandemic, client enquiry volumes increased rapidly, with clients often duplicating enquiries via phone and email in hopes of receiving an answer faster.

Parliamentarian Enquiries

The number of parliamentarian enquiries is also increasing. More constituents are asking Members of Parliament and Senators for help to understand the status of their case, or expedite them.

• IRCC has a dedicated Information Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators co-located with the Client Support Centre in Montréal, and in Ottawa, for clients who reach out to their local Member of Parliament or Senator’s office for support.
• The Information Centre’s goal is to answer telephone calls within 20 minutes and to respond to emails within two business days.
  • In 2020-2021, the Information Centre met its targets 88% of the time
  • On average, calls were answered in under 11 minutes and emails were responded to in just under two business days

In Q1 of 2021-2022, the Information Centre responded to over 53,000 constituent case enquiries, on par with highest totals from recent years.

In Person – Client Support in Canada

Domestic Network locations

• While in-person client support services were removed from local IRCC offices in Canada as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan in 2012, clients continue to seek some client support at one of our Domestic Network Local offices during their scheduled interactions or appointments, such as citizenship tests or PR landing interviews.

Service Canada locations

• In 2019–20, IRCC expanded its service delivery network with the implementation of
  an in-Canada collection service whereby Service Canada collects biometrics on IRCC’s behalf.
• As of December 3, 2019, 58 Service Canada and Passport Canada locations collect biometrics in support of an application for temporary or permanent residence from any client physically in Canada, saving time and money for these individuals and facilitating future border crossings where systematic fingerprint verification has been implemented.
• To give biometrics in Canada, applicants will need to book an appointment in advance through an online appointment booking tool at canada.ca/service-canada-appointment.

Pandemic Impact

• All Domestic Network offices were closed as of March 14th, 2020, and most services offered were moved to a virtual platform. IRCC in-person offices continue to be closed until further notice. Only clients with scheduled appointments can visit an office.
• Service Canada is gradually reactivating Biometrics Collection services in Service Canada offices and until further notice, biometrics collection is by appointment only.

In Person – Client Support Overseas

Visa application centres

• Visa application centres (VACs) are third-party service providers, contracted by the Government of Canada and managed by private companies, that are authorized to provide specific administrative support services and biometric collection services (e.g. taking fingerprints) for visa applicants.

164 locations in 108 countries

• VACs deliver services in the local language and the most prevalent Canadian official language.
• VACs do not represent the Government of Canada and cannot make decisions or determinations on visa applications or provide any visa or permit-related advice to applicants.

Pandemic Impact

• As of August 19, 2021, 158 out of 164 VACs are open to the public.
• 12 are fully open and 146 offer partial services (reduced hours and/or limited services).

Other Methods of Enquiries – High Volumes

Access to Information or Privacy Requests (ATIP)

• 99%^Footnote2 (out of 132,890) of ATIP requests were from clients, or their representatives, seeking application information (25% for status updates, and 55% for reasons for refusal).
• IRCC received more ATIP requests than all other departments combined:
  • over 74% of all Government of Canada Access to Information requests
  • over 20% of all Government of Canada Privacy requests

Ministerial Correspondence

• Over 26,000 replies were produced for departmental signature on behalf of the Minister
  • 21,060 were case-related from clients
  • 5,265 were policy questions, suggestions or comments from the general public
• Over 600 letters from Members of Parliament, stakeholders, foreign governments, minister’s constituents and other VIPs were signed by the minister

Given the large volume of ATIP requests, the Department is improving ATIP client experience by enhancing readily accessible information

Client Service Improvements – The Future

Digital Platform Modernization

• IRCC is building a new enterprise-wide digital platform that will provide an end-to-end service experience, allowing clients to monitor their application status, thereby reducing ATIP requests and calls to the Client Support Centre
• Clients will have the ability to easily transition through all program phases (from temporary or permanent residency, to citizenship to receiving a passport)

Client Support Centre

• Investment in the Client Support Centre to maintain and uphold client service improvements achieved since 2019 and through which the following service standards were established:
  • 50% of calls answered within a wait time of 30 minutes
  • A personalized response received within 3 business days for email enquiries

IRCC online

• Expanding the capabilities of the MyAccount digital experience platform to include more information on the status of applications
• Improving explanations for why an application was refused, and proactively notifying the client
• Building capacity to push-notify targeted information related to clients’ applications.

Clients have told us that some of their top areas for service improvement for the Department include improving the usability of the website and providing more information on the status of their applications.

Key Takeaways

• Online support is essential – the website and our online tools are the most efficient and effective way to deliver support.
• In-person support provides personalized help – immigration and citizenship applications can be life-changing and complicated. Some clients need personal support and reassurance.

IRCC’s two greatest client support challenges are:

• Volumes – We receive more applications every year, straining operational teams and leading more clients to ask for support than we have capacity to give.
• Complexity – Our programs are complicated and so are our operations and procedures. Seemingly simple questions often have complicated answers.