Occasionally is closer to the truth than often? You make me smile. How can you know?
(1) What is the truth (in percentages), if 'often' does not fit it?
(2) The mapping of expressions like 'often' 'occasionally' 'sometimes' 'rarely' to percentages is far from interindividually fixed. For some of these expressions the range of individually accepted percentages goes from 5 % to 85 %. Only very few expressions like 'never' 'certain' or 'toss-up' had a narrow range of accepted meanings.

For the same percentage, in surveys, people used vastly different verbal expressions. That even depends on context. 'Often', in the context of accidents means to most people a completely different percentage than 'often' in the context of wins of a football team.

So, the claim that any of these expressions is closer to the truth is rather silly. For Bill, 'often' could mean a higher, lower or even the same percentage as 'occasionally' for you.

Wolfgang