Data on SIA responses to customer service requests and complaints
Published 21 November 2025
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Request
Please provide the following information for the financial years 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025:
- the average call wait times for your customer service phone lines for each year
- the percentage of calls answered within your target time for each of those years
- the average response time for written correspondence (email, letter, or online submissions) in each of those years
- the percentage of correspondence responded to within the SIA’s target time frame in each year
- the number of formal complaints received relating to delays, unanswered calls, or poor customer service, broken down by year
- if held, the department’s official service level targets for customer interaction (for example: target wait time, target response time) and whether those targets were met in each year
Response
The SIA holds the information that you have requested.
Average call wait times for our customer service phone lines
We attach a CSV file which shows the average call wait times for customer service phone lines for the financial years 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025.
Percentage of calls answered within our target time
Our phone service is a ‘business support line’, so our target for calls answered is based on our response times for managing calls from businesses using ACS services.
We attach a CSV file which shows the percentage of calls from businesses using the Licence Assist or Licence Management ACS services that were answered within 2 minutes during the financial years 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025.
Average response time for written correspondence (email, letter, or online submissions)
We attach a CSV which show the data in relation to contact from businesses and individuals.
Percentage of correspondence responded to within the SIA’s target time frame
We attach a CSV file which shows the percentage of correspondence responded to within our target time frame for service requests from businesses and individuals. The target for business service requests is two working days and the target for individual service requests is five working days.
Number of formal complaints received relating to delays, unanswered calls, or poor customer service, broken down by year
We attach a CSV file which shows the number of formal complaints that we received each year.
We introduced our current complaints system in April 2021, which initially did not include root cause reporting. This was introduced in December 2021, which is the reason we do not have the full-year data for 2021 to 2022. The data we have for 2021 to 2022 is from 9 December 2021 until 31 March 2022.
The data comes from a field called “Reason complaint raised”. We can select multiple options for this. Therefore, a complaint may relate to the time taken to handle an application but also could include the service from customer support staff. Many of these complaints will not solely be about the issue in question. The data collated only relates to formal complaints.
There are number of reasons why a complaint is selected, which includes the following:
- no or slow response to messages
- poor quality responses from SIA staff
- poor service from SIA staff
- service from customer support staff
- unable to contact or delayed response
In 2024 we introduced further reasons for raising a complaint, which are the last 3 options in the list above. This is why figures for those reasons only appear for financial year 2024 to 2025. We do not have a specific option to record dissatisfaction for unanswered calls.
The statistics we have obtained relate to all formal complaints logged regardless of outcome. Some responses will have been upheld (an SIA error) and some will have been not upheld (no error on SIA’s part).
The department’s official service-level targets for customer interaction (for example: target wait time, target response time) and whether those targets were met in each year.
We attach a CSV file which shows these internal service level targets.
We have a published Key Performance Indicator where we need to obtain a Net Promoter Score of at least +50, which is derived from the customer satisfaction survey we send customers when we make a licensing decision. The customer satisfaction survey is completed on a voluntary basis and gives us a good indication of the quality of service we provide. The SIA has exceeded this target since it was introduced in 2023.
There are internal service level targets which are comprised of Directorate Performance Indicators which the SIA has had for the years 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023, 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025, and which cover the management of customer contact:
- 80% of service requests with electronic documents attached are resolved within 5 working days target
- 90% of service requests from individuals are resolved to the quality standard within 5 working days target
- 90% of service request for businesses are resolved to the quality standard within the 2 working days target
- 80% of answered calls from businesses using the Licence Assist or Licence Management ACS services have an average wait time which does not exceed 2 minutes – please see our response to question 2 above
[Ref: FOI 0575]