Computershare Voucher Services has launched an new online operating system as part of a £3 million investment programme for its childcare voucher customers.
The new online system allows parents and registered carers to effectively have their own account, which can be accessed online and used to pay and redeem childcare vouchers.It is has been designed to allow childcare vouchers to be administered online at every stage of the process.
Managing director of Computershare Voucher Services, Simon Moore, said: “With the launch of the new fully-automated service, parents and carers will now be offered a much quicker and easier system that is online from end to end, and which brings the childcare voucher system into the 21st century.
“We are currently campaigning strongly against Gordon Brown’s announcement that the tax-relief on childcare vouchers may be scrapped by 2015. The move has been met by outrage from thousands of parents, as for many, the vouchers are a vital saving towards the cost of childcare, which is one of the biggest expenditures they face.”
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Computershare Voucher Services acquired Busy Bees Childcare Vouchers just over a year ago.
As Busy Bees it was possiblke to speak to someone to sort out any problems. I have been contacted by Computershare Voucher Services asking me to phone and speak to a ‘Customer Service Representative’. Yesterday and today I have phoned 4 times and spent 40 minutes waiting but have not spoken to anyone. I emailed yesterday and got no reply. This is appalling ‘service’. I hope Simon Moore is mortified by this and gets it sorted out soon rather than bragging about the ‘service’.
I am acting on behalf of an employee whose vouchers have not been credited to their account. I have also phoned 4 times today and been held in a que each time. At the time of writing 04/11/09 16:24 I have been waiting for 33 minutes and still in a que and still not spoken to a representative. This service is appalling.
As a carer receiving chidcare vouchers i must say that i too am incredibly angry at the lack of service.
I have been trying for over 2weeks now to redeem a substantial ammount of money using the computershare voucher system .
3 e-mails and numerous phone calls (that result in being left in a queue for 40min at a time-at this point i decide to put the phone down and get on with my day) later i am still no closer to receiving any help or support.
I am now becoming very concerned that the company is even operating, as all of my attempts at contact have been to no avail
Lets hope that somebody takes stock of these comments and does something about it sharpish!
We’ve invested heavily in new technology this year, including the successful and seamless introduction of a new and improved telephony platform in April of this year.
On the 12 October we introduced a new operating system as part of our on-going investment in the business. The vast majority of the 120,000 parents, 14,000 employers and 40,000 carers that our business services experienced a seamless transition to the new system and are up and running with their new online accounts.
However, we are conscious that for a small number of people, things have not gone as smoothly as we would have liked. As a consequence, calls to our contact centre have increased as have email queries.
To meet this demand, we have significantly increased the number of customer service representatives that we have available both on the phones within our Customer Service Centre and in our Transactional Services Centre. Our phone lines are open in the evening until 20.00 (Monday to Friday) and we are working throughout the weekend to ensure that email queries are answered.
We apologise for any inconvenience that you may have encountered, give you our assurance that we will persevere until all queries are answered and thank you for your patience and understanding.
In defence of Computershare – I managed to get through to their customer services representative within a couple of minutes, so perhaps they really have beefed up their staffing levels as claimed.
Mind you, the representative couldn’t tell me where my money was. She could confirm that it had been taken from my paycheck, but couldn’t explain why it wasn’t in my computershare account.. So now I can’t explain to my child’s carer why she won’t get paid..
I too have been on the end of Computershare’s poor service. Like so many parents, I discovered that my usual monthly amount had gone out of my pay cheque but had not been credited against my Computershare account.
I phoned Customer Services a week ago. I finally got through after 13 minutes of “musak” and was told it was a technical problem at their end. I was also told that it would be passed to a member of staff who specifically deals with “stopped” transfers, it would be sorted within 2-3 days and this would be confirmed to me by e-mail.
A couple of days ago I’d heard nothing so I e-mailed. I’ve still not heard anything so it’s getting very embarrassing not being able to pay my carer.
I have to say that Computershare’s new website is much better than the old Busy Bees’ version and much easier to use. However, the service behind it is no better; Busy Bees were equally useless, and my experience is that they certainly haven’t got enough staff to deal with the volume of calls and e-mail enquiries. I imagine a lot of people are getting very frustrated and angry.