Ringing IRD

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Ringing IRD

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Dairyxox

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#820931 17-May-2013 07:51

Try calling studylink then....

Ive been trying to confirm a credit for 4 months. Every time you ring the answer service says "Check our website, this is a busy time for us, seeya!!" (Paraphrased) And thats it. No phone system.

Kind of shocking for a government dept.

dweebus

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#820977 17-May-2013 09:16

I too have done battle with the IRD so called voice recognition phone system over a period of days. I eventually triumphed, but not without a significant amount of hair loss.

The "Due to overloading..." message actually means "I don't understand what you are on about, so go away you insignificant little person." The IRDs voice recognition software’s understanding seems somewhat limited. HAL9000 it ain’t. The work around is to say something moronic like "Tax" at the voice prompt, or really confuse it by give it a short summary of existential philosophy in Urdu or Sanskrit, though pig Latin or ancient Greek may also work. The voice recognition system system will then respond with a list of phrases it actually does understand. Say one of these and you are in.

Rickles

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#821049 17-May-2013 11:40

I called IRD last week, and found that one or two word responses to the automated system works best.

After connecting with the appropriate area I was 'caller 8 and estimated 2 hours' from speaking to someone, and was offered the call-back option, which I took.

The call-back came within about 40 minutes, and the 'live' operator pretty much took care of all my queries.

Initial call was about 11am.

R.

Abo

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#821311 17-May-2013 18:57

Ring them in the morning.

ajobbins

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#821318 17-May-2013 20:13

I had a hell of a time calling them last year.

No matter when I called, I either got the overload message or call back option. The expected call back time was literally days.

The stupid thing was, despite me calling in from overseas on their "overseas callers" line, the system will ONLY accept a NZ landline number to call you back on.

Luckily for me, I have a VoIP line in NZ, so I was able to receive a call back on that. But if you don't have a NZ number and you're overseas, basically you're screwed.

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lchiu7

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#821480 18-May-2013 09:52

They've always called me back when the wait was too long. I am usually at work and it's not convenient to have the call go back to my office number so I just do a divert to my cell. Of course not all phone systems might have that option or you might not have a landline available.

Perhaps one option is for the user to leave their cell number and IRD texts you back when they are ready for you plus a unique code. You call back to a special non 0800 number (if calling from a cell) or 0800 if not, go into a callback queue, enter your unique ID and get routed to the next CSR?

They don't mind texting you to tell your your returns are due so the technology is in place already. It can't be hard to implement the rest of the process building on the current callback process.

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1080p

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#821482 18-May-2013 10:11

I pick up the phone at 8:00am and it is always answered within minutes... It is all about the timing of the call.

scuwp

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#821487 18-May-2013 10:23

1080p: I pick up the phone at 8:00am and it is always answered within minutes... It is all about the timing of the call.

This!

It must also be appreciated that this time of the year is their busiest period. Try calling when the other half of the country may not be.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

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