Customer compliance interventions 110-13000000

Always send a desktop message before trying to call customers if they are subscribed to electronic messaging.

Note: Compliance Officers must only select pre-call notification.

Follow Services Australia phone standards.

If calling a customer, the Compliance Officer must introduce themselves and advise they are calling from Services Australia. See Answering calls in Centrelink.

Offer the use of an interpreter when the:

• customer requests an interpreter
• customer's need for an interpreter has been recorded
• customer has limited or no English proficiency
• Compliance Officer cannot understand what is being said
• customer, who normally understands English may need additional support

If the customer record has an interpreter indicator or an interpreter is required, follow:

• Guidelines for using interpreters
• Booking an interpreter for an appointment

Do not release information until the person on the phone has been authenticated as either the:

• customer, see Authenticating a customer
• customer's authorised representative, see Nominees and Person Permitted to Enquire (PPE) or Update (PPU) authority

Customers can experience vulnerability because of:

• unexpected life events, and/or
• long-term or short-term circumstances

Customers experiencing vulnerability may need more support or help to access payments and services.

Anyone can be at risk of vulnerability. It is not linked to a specific customer group or characteristic. Everyone experiences vulnerability differently.

It may be appropriate to make additional attempts to contact the customer, depending on their circumstances.

To identify customers experiencing vulnerability and risk issues, see Identifying customer vulnerability and risk issues.

If social worker assistance is required, see Social workers' role in debt, payment assurance and compensation.

Before making an adverse decision, such as suspension or debt raising, check if the customer is impacted by a declared disaster or emergency event.

To help identify if the customer is impacted, see:

• Emergencies and Incidents intranet page
• Emergency events page for a summary of available resources

Customers impacted by a declared disaster or emergency event include those:

• in a disaster affected postcode, and/or
• who have been granted a disaster related/hardship payment in the last 14 days

Payments include (but are not limited to):

• Disaster Recovery Allowance (DRA)
• Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP)
• Crisis Payment (CrP)

If the customer has been impacted by a declared disaster or emergency event do the following before making any adverse decision:

• Check the customer’s record for any information to indicate they have been impacted by the declared disaster or emergency event
• Before taking any suspension or cancellation action, make three phone contact attempts on all numbers over a minimum of two days to contact the customer
• Accept any reasonable request from the customer, for example, extra time to respond to the request or produce requested information

Place the review on hold for the time asked for by the customer.

If social worker help is needed, see Social workers' role in debt, payment assurance and compensation.

If the customer has notified a bereavement, Compliance Officers need to be empathetic and sensitive in their discussions with customers and be culturally aware of the needs of the person.

Compliance Officers can apply a 28 day extension to allow the customer more time.

It is considered that at these times the customer needs extra adjustment time before responding to the intervention.

If required, see Confirmation of the death of an adult or child.

During outbound contact, tell the customer at the start of the call that it may be recorded. See Step 4 in Calling a customer or returning a customer's call.

There is no requirement for staff to advise the caller that their inbound call is being recorded. Call recording information is provided via the IVR message on inbound calls. See Call and screen recording - information and access.

When updating a customer's or nominee's contact details, check and update all contact details as required, including their postal address and mobile number.

In Customer First, use the Change in Contact Details workflow to update all contact details.