U.S. Visa Call Center

[USCONGUZ]

Dear Candle for Love Members,

 

About the time we started to participate in this forum, many members were commenting on our switch to a call center for responding to some queries. Please find below a comment that we are adding to our own FAQ’s regarding this topic as well our reasons for taking this step.

 

The U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou Immigrant Visa Unit will process over 30,000 immigrant visa petitions and will receive over 100,000 inquiries about these cases this year. Approximately 70% of these inquiries will concern timing/scheduling of interviews and case arrival at the Consulate. While we understand petitioner and applicant desire to get more information about their cases, especially case specific timing information, the current inquiry workload was extremely large, had over a week backlog to answer questions, and was an impediment to processing cases more quickly.

 

To enable petitioners and applicants to get accurate answers more quickly and to enable Immigrant Visa staff to process more cases, the Immigrant Visa Unit has begun providing the U.S. Visa Information Center information about what cases have arrived at the Consulate, where cases are in the interview queue, and what cases have been scheduled. The U.S. Visa Information Center has been handling all Non-Immigrant Visa questions and scheduling for over one year and the Customer Service Representatives who answer your calls can give you an immediate answer about case status and can answer any other question concerning the immigrant visa process. Outside of status information, the U.S. Visa Information Center has no case-specific information and thus cannot answer post-interview questions.

 

 

The decision to make this change was driven by the need to make more efficient use of scant available resources. Over the course of the past year USCIS has doubled the number of cases shipped to Guangzhou. We absorbed that influx of cases with no commensurate increase in resources, making it necessary for the IV unit to make some decisions as to how best to handle our burgeoning workload. One decision we made was to transfer responsibility of answering these types of questions to the U.S. Visa Information Center. This change in procedures allows us to redirect the energies of our staff to perform other required tasks that Consulate personnel must perform, allowing the IV unit to process and interview more cases than before. While a small fee is charged to help defray the cost of this Information Center, the benefit of immediate answers and faster case processing will hopefully outweigh this minor inconvenience.

[warpedbored]

I did a little rearranging here to split off he idea of a web inquiry. I thought this would be a better place to provide member's feedback on the call center lifted from another topic.

 

Unbelievable, before you could get a response from GZ, within a week by e-mail.

 

Now we have to use a credit card and pay additional money for something that should be free!!!!

 

Only in America!!

 

I'm with you Bob. This bites the big one (sorry Don, Don't wanna end up in the PC )

 

What makes it even worse is that this outfit in Shanghai is a Chinese company, contracted to handle the inflow of requests. Our tax dollars at work.

 

 

yea,, i called twice so far, i paid the for the 12 mintues 6.5 usd.

 

I am a K-3 person

 

I quickly said my case # as soon as someone answered, and he answered eveything i wanted. I also called a second time a week later. Near the end of the phone call, the lady said, "you have 1 minute left"

 

I asked,

-Case status, yes/no

 

-Questions about aff of support, The lady told me, i needed 864, since GUZ considers the k-3 a Immigrant visa,,,but i still will call agian and ask another person to see if i get the same answer, I know i just need the 134 for a k-3. ughhhh

 

-I asked how long it takes from my the date DOS said they sent the Noa2 till she gets P3, she said, 6 to 8 weeks.

 

In my experience, one phone call may yield

one answer today and a different answer tomorrow.

So, I'm just erring on the side of caution

and doing both the I-134 and I-864.

 

I just don't think the person answering the

phones and the person processing the applications

share the same brain (or read the FAM manual).

 

I had to pay the fee twice because I kept getting bumped or put on hold or....

 

The service really is for the beneficiary, not the USC. Just like any other business... the customer pays the way ultimately...

 

This is totaly unacceptable. WHAT A BLOODY JOKE

And I really like ther reasoning. it is to benefit us by assigning needed personnel to other duties.

Lets face the real reason. They do not know how to answer valid questions about their inefficency from the people who pay there salary and are supposed to serve, (unless you consider condesendig B.S. an answer.) And the best way to avoid this situation is to make the ability to question them unavailable, just like every other agency involved in the visa fiasco.

 

I just called the Shanghai visa center and jumped through all the hoops..including prepaying...and got this message:

 

We are sorry but English speaking CSRs are not available right now. Please call back later or choose a different language.

 

I have purchased a pin number to call and find out the status of our visa..we sent the P3 back over a month ago.

 

I got to the correct place....message says you are next in line..then..

 

We are sorry but there are no English speaking CSRs available at this time. Please try back at a different time or choose another language. So I wanted 2 more hours and......the same thing.

 

Ummmm.....I have to pay for information I can't even get?? Anyone have this problem with the service?

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I have purchased a pin number to call and find out the status of our

visa..we sent the P3 back over a month ago.

 

I got to the correct place....message says you are next in line..then..

 

We are sorry but there are no English speaking CSRs available at this time. Please try back at a different time or choose another language. So I wanted 2 more hours and......the same thing.

 

Ummmm.....I have to pay for information I can't even get?? Anyone have this problem with the service?

[warpedbored]

I notice this thread went unanswered in yesterdays post. It is obvious that the new call system is not working for the American half of the relationship even though they paid good money to use it. It appears to me that the consulate has become even less communicative and distanced itself even further from the petitioners. What steps are being taken to improve this? All these people want is information. Questions like what is the status of their petition? Why is my case still pending in name check? When can I expect an interview date.

[USCONGUZ]

I notice this thread went unanswered in yesterdays post.  It is obvious that the new call system is not working for the American half of the relationship even though they paid good money to use it.  It appears to me that the consulate has become even less communicative and distanced itself even further from the petitioners.  What steps are being taken to improve this?  All these people want is information.  Questions like what is the status of their petition? Why is my case still pending in name check? When can I expect an interview date.

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Dear CFL Members,

 

We sincerely appreciate any constructive feedback members can provide. Specifically, any positive or negative experiences with the call center are very helpful. Your comments have been noted and will be taken into account during our continuous effort to improve the U.S. Visa Information Center.

 

Regards,

 

Immigrant Visa Unit, U.S. Consulate, Guangzhou, China