Teleperformance has a service level target of 80% of calls being answered by a person within 30 seconds. It failed to meet this target from April to July 2022. In April, it received 625,000 calls in one week, nearly 350% above the forecast, during which time 55% of calls were answered within 30 seconds. Its worst performance was in in May 2022, when only 14% of calls were answered within 30 seconds.34 We heard that constituents had been hung up on when trying to contact the customer support telephone line, and that many people had turned to contacting their MPs instead. HMPO accepted that there were significant issues with Teleperformance, and that a number of customers lost confidence in its system. It told us that it worked “very closely” with Teleperformance “once we saw how off-track their performance was” and that it was continuing to do so in order to prepare the supplier for the surge in 2023.35 30 C&AG’s Report paras 2.9–2.9, 3.11 and Figures 1, 9 31 Q 76; C&AG’s Report para 2.8, Figure 9 32 Q 67; C&AG’s Report para 3.12, Figure 9 33 Q 76 34 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13, Figure 9 35 Qq 30, 33, 102 14 Investigation into the UK Passport Office