Why the Social Security Administration Fails with Bots
By: Ellen B. Marshall
Tags: Frustration, Social Security, Behavioral Science, Service Design, Bots

Why the Social Security Administration Fails with Bots

Photo by Ellen B. Marshall, 2020 all rights reserved.

Social Security Administration needs voice reception bots because people are often mad when they start their business with SSA. And they are hopping mad when they finish. Curiously, this is one call when the transaction is not followed by a quality control feedback questionnaire. Like Spectrum or Toyota, or a number of companies that care about their service, or at least care that their telephone receptionists and technicians follow their scripts.

I have just finished making an address change and it has taken me three weeks. When I started, it was eight minutes into my call to Social Security, repeating the spelling of my name and correcting my street number, before I realized that I had to get the exact amount of my last benefit check — auto-deposited for years. Oops, I had to call my bank and then call SSA back and talk to the nice, but tone deaf gentleman bot voice all over again.

The reason Social Security needs this system is because of the volume of calls. If they did not have me calling back three times, that volume would be cut by two thirds.

For my second contact I went online, the easiest way to change my address they say on the phone, so why not? To log in they want my user name, which as requests go, would be simple, except that the one they gave me is impossible to remember or type correctly even if I did not have dyslexia and short term memory loss. It looks like I used some hard drugs and then fell on the keyboard during the prompt to choose a user name.

Failing that, the lovely government that once put a man on the moon and could carry out a remote drone attack half way around the globe, said they would send me a letter to change my user name. They could have sent a guy to walk from our county seat to hand me that letter. I have no idea. I’m still waiting.

My letter was supposed to arrive in five to ten days. But this is the Holiday Season, and the Pandemic Mail-order Every Little Thing Season, so that letter with my new user name may take some time to arrive.

But today, at 5:50 am, with my feet soaking in the old epsom salts and hot water detox bath, I sacrificed my morning writing time to get my address change completed with Social Security. Maybe they would not be too busy at that early hour.

Funny, I got the same nice gentleman bot as the first time I called. But he was not one lick smarter. We got through the promised rigamarole in six minutes — pretty good. Last check amount, old address, new address, all except he could not get my new apartment number correct.

Letter A turned into Eight, and when I said “No” to his correct? query, he started to tell me to call during business hours or go online (the simplest way to make an address change if your name is something like Hs84487h568.)

Drat! Rats! And more. I called him some things I don’t call anybody. And how! Why not? It’s only a bot — for their convenience. A call to the SSA should start with a disclaimer, enter your start and finishing pulse rate. Then they send me a compensation check. I’d like to get paid for all the time it takes for SSA to save on personnel and have to talk to the bot that will change my address. Add a bonus for all the worry that it took me three weeks to follow the letter of the law and couldn’t notify SSA ASAP like the senior center lady told me to.

How did I succeed? Unlike the bot-voiced guy, I learned something. I learned to talk robot to a database system that is and will always be only as good as the assumptions made by the designers. A good design will collect all those No! answers and figure out what the problem is. That may mean they have to hire one of the millions of people out of work due to the pandemic. And they can’t afford that since our $600 stimulus checks should be coming any month.

Now, to get my car and driver’s license registered in my new state.

(Tip if the day: Don’t ever move. Especially twice in eleven months.)

(Ellen B. Marshall is a retired teacher of management and behavioral sciences. In 2020 she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her Memoir, Greetings from WORLDS: A Road Trip to Hell and Back is due out in 2021.)