Citizenship customer call centre fit for purpose or not ?

[trs2011]

I have heard people come up with all sorts of anger and frustration towards the citizenship call centre and i wonder if this call centre is playing games with our minds or what ?

These people have access to our applications like when we want to change details they can easily do that but when it comes to updates they talk nonsense ? Is it true that if an application is less than 6 moths they cant know the progress except the caseworker or they actually know but they don't want to let us know what is going on ? Remember , people pay a lot of money £851 , so the least they (we) deserve is to be updated on the progress if we ask .
I would understand if it was other forms of applications where people didn't pay , but in this instance , its not so . What do you guys think ? Generally , i m not impressed at all , its not fit for purpose .

[Gyfrinachgar]

I have heard people come up with all sorts of anger and frustration towards the citizenship call centre and i wonder if this call centre is playing games with our minds or what ?

These people have access to our applications like when we want to change details they can easily do that but when it comes to updates they talk nonsense ? Is it true that if an application is less than 6 moths they cant know the progress except the caseworker or they actually know but they don't want to let us know what is going on ? Remember , people pay a lot of money £851 , so the least they (we) deserve is to be updated on the progress if we ask .
I would understand if it was other forms of applications where people didn't pay , but in this instance , its not so . What do you guys think ? Generally , i m not impressed at all , its not fit for purpose .

Some fees are deliberately set above the administrative cost in order to generate the revenue which is used to help fund the UK immigration system. This is only fair and necessary. The UKBA is seeking to limit most increases to approximately 2% - which is well below the inflation rate. In any case, I think £851 is a very reasonable price for a nationality. If British citizenship and passport aren't even worth a grand to someone, that someone should seriously reconsider anyway.

Secondly, they have to protect their caseworkers. It is absolutely reasonable to prevent unnecessary calls, otherwise their service would be completely overloaded. People would call every week to check, to exercise pressure, to complain, to vent anger, ... There are over 180,000 applications for naturalisation every year. If every one of those applicants would call just once during their wait, that would still make a volume of 700 calls every working day - more than one per minute. That would increase application waiting times massively, because caseworkers would have no time to do anything else. If there is no feedback within 6 months (which rarely happens), we have the right to inquire what the situation is. Again, I think that is pretty fair.

[barnaby]

If there is no feedback within 6 months (which rarely happens), we have the right to inquire what the situation is. Again, I think that is pretty fair.

Has anyone ever been told anything useful after the 6 months has elapsed?! My wife waited until 6 months after applying and then called the HO, only to be told to email. Her email has not received any reply. It's now nearly 7 months.

[simonflynn04]

I also have to say I think £851 is a good price for British citizenship, if it is possible to put a price on it ... Even as a relatively broke student! I can completely understand wanting to know how your application is going but realistically given the numbers that are applying it isn't feasible to reply to every single question as the previous poster mentioned. Once your application has been sent you just need to be patient. Given the constraints on government spending at the moment I doubt funding a call centre for this would be money well spent.

[ceem]

There are more than a million items sent on fed ex or DHL each day and still it is feasible to track the real time progress of each and every parcel without overloading or delaying the system. So if UKBA would want to make their service better they can.. but they wont. For the £851 we pay, I would say the service is pretty poor, in fact sub standard. ohh and one more thing.. after paying all this amount you still get reply in 2nd class post. So £851 is not fair price at all, it would have been if i could buy it from nearby tesco.

On second thoughts.. would that prevent you from applying for BC? I think No. Even if the cost was £2000 people would still apply because the benefits of having a citizenship far outweighs the costs involved. In this respect UKBA have an upperhand, they know we will apply anyhow, so why waste time and money improving service standards.. the money could well be spent on bonuses..

Now.. dont blame the UKBA alone. Have you applied for visas recently? IRISh consulate have a premium rate number that charge you £1.5 /min for visa enquiries. French and German consulates either dont reply or just cut and paste information from their website to the email reply. Worse of all Indian consulate never reply to emails and hardly pick up the phones.

[trs2011]

There are more than a million items sent on fed ex or DHL each day and still it is feasible to track the real time progress of each and every parcel without overloading or delaying the system. So if UKBA would want to make their service better they can.. but they wont. For the £851 we pay, I would say the service is pretty poor, in fact sub standard. ohh and one more thing.. after paying all this amount you still get reply in 2nd class post. So £851 is not fair price at all, it would have been if i could buy it from nearby tesco.

On second thoughts.. would that prevent you from applying for BC? I think No. Even if the cost was £2000 people would still apply because the benefits of having a citizenship far outweighs the costs involved. In this respect UKBA have an upperhand, they know we will apply anyhow, so why waste time and money improving service standards.. the money could well be spent on bonuses..

Now.. dont blame the UKBA alone. Have you applied for visas recently? IRISh consulate have a premium rate number that charge you £1.5 /min for visa enquiries. French and German consulates either dont reply or just cut and paste information from their website to the email reply. Worse of all Indian consulate never reply to emails and hardly pick up the phones.

Totally agree with your points mate ...

[aledeniz]

Remember , people pay a lot of money £851 , so the least they (we) deserve is to be updated on the progress if we ask .
I would understand if it was other forms of applications where people didn't pay , but in this instance , its not so . What do you guys think ? Generally , i m not impressed at all , its not fit for purpose .

I just posted a post about my wife's experience with Italy:

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... ht=#730127

Care to compare UKBA with them?

[Gyfrinachgar]

Thanks aledeniz, I think that helps to put things into perspective. It really grinds my gears when I read what some people expect. As if the citizenship were an item that one can order on Amazon. As if the Home Office were a service provider. People are given the opportunity to get the citizenship (in comparison) cheap and fairly easy in the UK - and some still expect to get pampered. Be bloody thankful for what we got here!!

[trs2011]

Thanks aledeniz, I think that helps to put things into perspective. It really grinds my gears when I read what some people expect. As if the citizenship were an item that one can order on Amazon. As if the Home Office were a service provider. People are given the opportunity to get the citizenship (in comparison) cheap and fairly easy in the UK - and some still expect to get pampered. Be bloody thankful for what we got here!!

Way off topic , who has emphasised on what you are saying ? Don't misinterpret things dude , otherwise shut it . Read the main heading again what it has said NOT what you are sprouting nonsense about . We are not comparing one country to another or weighing the citizenship in any way , shape or form stop being stupid , and start using common sense . If you can't understand what the thread is on about , then bugger off , silly sod .

[Casa]

Can members please post with respect...or not at all. This thread will be closed if it kicks off an argument. Bad language won't be tolerated either.

[Gyfrinachgar]

bugger off , silly sod

Not sure what you are going on about, and what disgruntled you in such a way as to call me stupid and a silly sod. As I explained, the British immigration process is - while undoubtedly not without its flaws - overall a very well operating system. I think it offers a very reasonable service for its money, and even more so if you compare it with the horrendous procedures in other countries. One cannot expect much more from it as it currently offers - as explained above, it would be both unreasonably resource-heavy and also completely unnecessary. One simply cannot expect the same customer service (telephone, tracking, etc.) as FedEx and other dedicated logistics companies offer. It would either considerably increase fees or processing times or both. Currently, 95% of applications are processed within 6 months, and the vast majority quicker than that (the record, I think, stands at 1 month). I would like to emphasise again how much I think we should count our blessings for having this service. It is regrettable that your experiences have not been as agreeable as mine, but this is not the place to blow off steam in such a manner, please.

[trs2011]

bugger off , silly sod

Not sure what you are going on about, and what disgruntled you in such a way as to call me stupid and a silly sod. As I explained, the British immigration process is - while undoubtedly not without its flaws - overall a very well operating system. I think it offers a very reasonable service for its money, and even more so if you compare it with the horrendous procedures in other countries. One cannot expect much more from it as it currently offers - as explained above, it would be both unreasonably resource-heavy and also completely unnecessary. One simply cannot expect the same customer service (telephone, tracking, etc.) as FedEx and other dedicated logistics companies offer. It would either considerably increase fees or processing times or both. Currently, 95% of applications are processed within 6 months, and the vast majority quicker than that (the record, I think, stands at 1 month). I would like to emphasise again how much I think we should count our blessings for having this service. It is regrettable that your experiences have not been as agreeable as mine, but this is not the place to blow off steam in such a manner, please.

Fair enough , i take back those words i mentioned , it was not called for . However , i get your point but i also feel you missed out my point , and as you said , all immigration services have their flaws so we can't keep having this debate as in the end , it will go off rails ...