Poor service from the call centre robots!!!

To whom it may concern

I am EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED with the Department of Labour and its call centre!!!

I submitted a claim for the unemployment benefit on the 22 June 2020. After a lot of back and forth and 3 submissions of documents my case was finalized on 11 March 2021 and by then it was too late as I had started another job and couldn’t receive the benefit. I again lost my job in March 2022 and submitted a claim on 15 March 2022. Only to receive an email on 04 April 2022 (below) to say I need to submit documents again, which I did. The email clearly states that I have 5 working days to submit and if I don’t, the case will be closed.

So after submitting my documents again, I call the call centre to follow up and receive the same standard response from your agents, “I apologize sir, I will escalate it”. I have maybe about 6/7 escalations now with no response or feedback from your agents! Who are they escalating it too because they say they sending the escalation to the assessor but that’s clearly not the case as I get no feedback or response and it shows on U-filing as sent to assessor. One guy I spoke to last week Thursday even told me he will speak to a senior manager and give me feedback but guess what, still nothing, no surprise there. What is the point of having this “streamlined automated online system” if things are going backwards and there is still even longer delays than going into a the labour centre and submitting my application manually which in my opinion is clearly quicker than U-filing? Where is the convenience in doing this online? Why don’t your agents have the necessary tools to actually do their jobs like being able to see who the assessor is that is working with my application? Of even a method of contact to engage the assessor who is dealing with my application? Why is it that I can never get to speak to a team leader/manager? Are they gods or VIPs that no one is allowed to speak to them? Whether I spoke to Kgomotso, Charity, Harry (Who by the way had me on hold for about 15min and then dropped the call) or any of the other agents, they all have the same excuse, “sorry there are no team leaders/managers available, they all in a meeting”. I have called at all different times of the day and it’s the same excuse. They are all public servants!!! They need to start acting like it. They are not gods or VIPs!!! They should be accessible to the public if there are issues. If people don’t like their jobs or being in the public sector then by all means leave and go find a job that suits you but they must remember as long as they are in government they need to provide a service to the public, it doesn’t matter your rank!!! Even the president is accountable to the public.

SO now that I have vented, I want to know if someone if going to take accountability for my application and get it resolved by the end of this week or do I need to wait until I find another job so that my application can be finalized???