Just as I'm working on distilling information from an Accenture report on government call centers and how they've still got a bit of room to improve, I run across this angry letter in the Washington Post from a woman trying to get a passport renewed:

I was so incensed by the July 9 letter from Maura Harty, assistant U.S. secretary of state for consular affairs, that I can hardly believe I haven't spontaneously combusted.

My son applied for a passport on May 31 for a July 8 departure, paying the expediting fee. When I went to the Web site that Ms. Harty directed readers to in her letter, I was told "the passport is in process" and nothing else. Calling the passport call center was equally unsatisfying. The agents at the center can do two things: (1) tell you they don't know anything and can't help you because they aren't allowed to talk with passport issuers; and (2) put up to two whole notes in your file asking the squirreled-away processors to expedite the process (which we had already paid for).

What happens next? If someone in the issuance section actually reads the notes, this person may or may not respond and let the call center people know what is going on. For this reason I was asked to call the call center back two days later. When I did, I waited 35 minutes for someone to tell me that they didn't know anything.

To add insult to injury, if you are able to wait the 40-plus minutes it takes to access the call center's "automated" appointment maker, you then get the pleasure of standing outside in the blazing sun for hours between the time of your appointment and the time someone actually can see you. You are not told that you are to be outside, in the blazing sun, with no shade, and thus none of the more than 50 people in line had hats, water or sunscreen. Did they have someone outside providing information to the people waiting? Absolutely not.

If you need a passport, don't call the State Department's ridiculous number or visit its inane Web site. Call your senator or your representative.

One of the key findings in the Accenture report is that merely having the technology to do things (like IVRs, web sites, call routing) doesn't mean that the cultural change has been made in the call center to really give citizens access to their government and the services it provides.

For examples of how a government call can go right, look to New York's 311 line, or the new 311 service for the City of Minneapolis, which we profiled here.