Social Security Experience Panels: agency opening hours

Participant Preferences for Contacting the Agency

Survey Data

Participants were asked what their preferred method would be for contacting Social Security Scotland (Table 6):

Table 6: Inbound communication preferences^[6]

Mode of contact	All of the time or most of the time (%)	Sometimes (%)	Rarely or Never (%)	Total who would use this service, some, most or all of the time
Email	57%	34%	9%	91%
Telephone	57%	29%	12%	87%
Online webchat	30%	34%	36%	64%
Post	24%	38%	38%	62%
In person	25%	37%	38%	62%
SMS / text message	20%	33%	47%	53%
Through social media	8%	17%	76%	24%

Most participants were happy to use a variety of means to contact the agency. Email and telephone were the most popular. Social media was the least popular, with 3 out of 4 participants saying they would rarely or never choose this method.

We also asked participants if they would need to contact the agency through an accessible communication method (Table 7):

Table 7: Inbound accessible communication preferences^[7]

Mode of contact	All of the time or most of the time (%)	Sometimes (%)	Rarely or Never (%)
Interpreter	3.9	1.3	94.7
Typetalk	3.4	2.6	93.9
Using a BSL interpreter	4.0	1.1	94.9

In addition to these communicating needs, we gathered some information about technologies which enables deaf or hard of hearing people to make phone calls. We are re-contacting people who responded saying that they would use this service to clarify how they would use it and which technologies they would use - for example a speech to text device, a mobile phone app or text messaging. We will report on this at a later stage.

Participant views on modes of contact

Most participants were happy to contact the agency by telephone, however many expressed a desire to use online web-chat or email. This was typically for convenience, but there was also a strong theme of wanting communication to be by written means so as to create a record of what was said:

"Everything can be recorded […] so if there is any issue the document can be easily referred to and looked up"

"Being able to contact Social Security Scotland through email would be most advantageous. It would also enable accurate records to be kept with ease."

In some cases, the desire to be able to contact the agency digitally was related to accessibility, with a high number of participants commenting on an option to communicate by email or web-chat being more useful to them than face-to-face or telephone:

"Email would be my preference. I struggle to speak on the phone as it worsens my ME symptoms. Online chat would be a fantastic resource…"

"…telephone is quite stressful as my condition can mean finding the correct words is difficult…"

Participants also noted that the move to online communication could pose accessibility issues and that offline methods such as post or telephone should still be offered. Other participants noted that moving online would actually increase accessibility for them:

"Online web-chat would be my preferred option. […] I do not cope well with going to the office and talking face to face."

Choice of communication method

Most participants expressed some desire to choose how they contacted Social Security Scotland. The reasoning behind this was the method often had to be suited to their individual needs.

Key factors in choosing a method were the individual's medical condition, their level of comfort in using that particular method, whether they had easy access to that method and the reason they were contacting the agency.

"I think every way of communication should be available to meet the demands of the client base."

Social media was largely seen as being inappropriate for most occasions, and very few participants expressed any desire to contact the agency through this medium.

Other Insights

A number of additional themes were identified as part of the free text responses.

A small number of participants wanted all communication methods to be equal in terms of what you can do through them:

"…the ways should be equal so for example if you choose webchat but then they say oh you have to phone to do that. That is not good…"

Other participants wanted to highlight that written communication must be clear, consistent and avoid confusing the client. Receiving confusing or inaccurate communication from DWP was a cause of worry to some participants, especially if this was received over holiday periods when they were unable to contact the Department.

It was felt that ensuring that communication from the agency as a whole was clear and understandable would go some way to reducing the stress felt by clients. It may also reduce client demand to contact the agency after receiving a letter or email.