Some Filing Unemployment Claims Face Issues When Calling OESC

Wednesday, The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission said fewer people are calling their office with issues about unemployment claims, than one week ago. OESC said it's training more people to help answer questions by phone. 

People at Expo Square said they tried calling the state dozens and dozens of times before they stood in line to get tickets to meet someone face to face. 

"We're calling and we're calling and we're calling. Then we have to call and they wait hours," said Hank Jenkins. He said then, the line goes dead. "So now you might be the 7th or 800 caller so you have to wait all over again," said Jenkins. 

Shelley Zumwalt said since she became the Interim Director for OESC six weeks ago, she's made changes to their phone services. 

"To try to figure out where are the stopping points where people are getting hung up. How can we improve the service there and we have been able to and there is still some work to be done," said Zumwalt. 

Zumwalt said one week ago they were seeing around 30,000 calls each day. Now, that's down to 20,000 calls. She said they have between 400 to 700 agents answering those calls. 

"We've see the first call resolution metrics go up by 40 percent. That means 40 percent more people are getting resolution for their claims right when they call and that was not happening before," said Zumwalt. 

She said OESC is currently training more agents to answers calls, but said that training takes eight weeks.