Nick Bruining: Don’t spend hours on hold waiting for Centrelink to pick up. Try this shortcut instead!

A new Centrelink appointment service revealed in Your Money two weeks ago is proving to be a runaway success. Hours wasted on hold to a Centrelink call centre can be replaced by a designated call-back time or a local office walk-in appointment to see a specialist staff member. Your Money has been told that most 15-minute phone appointments are being conducted within five days. Depending on local availability, some customers can expect a call back on the same day. Thirty-minute walk-in appointments can take up to seven days but, again, local availability means some waiting times may be much shorter. The easiest way to make an appointment is via the Centrelink website or call the normal Centrelink service number and follow the appointment prompts. But the improved customer service system is yet to find its way through to the processing centres. Earlier in the year, Your Money highlighted the long wait times for new income support payment claims to be processed. While the addition of 3000 staff has improved processing times, delays are still significant and way above what one insider revealed used to be an internal objective of completion within two weeks. Services Australia general manager Hank Jongen said there had been improvements but additional staff were being added this financial year. “For the financial year to date, average processing times for an age pension claim are now 55 days, down from 93 days earlier. Concession card wait times are also down dramatically,” Mr Jongen said. “The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card was 42 days and is now down to 16 and the Low Income Health Care card has gone from 53 days down to 10.” Despite the ability to make an appointment, Centrelink’s online system still seems to work best with updates to bank balances and unitised investments. That service is available 24 hours a day. Unitised investments include super funds, shares and managed investment funds. Updates are almost always processed more speedily if done online. Other investments such as small companies, family trusts and real estate need to be coded into the system manually by a Centrelink officer. If you haven’t booked an appointment, you could physically take the information into a Centrelink office instead or be clever about the time of day you call them. If visiting your local office, try to avoid the busy days of Monday or Thursday and, if possible, and avoid lunchtimes, when many staff are on a break. Nick Bruining is an independent financial adviser and a member of the Certified Independent Financial Advisers Association