IG: Customer Serivce Problems Plague OPM’s Retirement Services (by Ian Smith)

A recent report from the Office of Personnel Management Inspector General found that the agency’s Retirement Services division is not living up to its goals in servicing correspondence from retired federal employees.

The report notes several key findings, one of which is that OPM’s Retirement Services is consistently not meeting its goal of responding to inquiries within 60 days. The table below from the report highlights the average processing time for inquiries, none of which are under 60 days.

Retirement Services also consistently fails to respond to all written correspondence, legal administrative specialists are not responsive to voice mails, and annuitants are having to make multiple attempts to contact the office to get responses. The report says that 53% of legal administrative specialists were not responsive to voice mails and 38% had mailboxes that were full so no message could be left.

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