by rick telberg
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when the internal revenue service launched its “future state initiative” in 2016, it promised a new and admirable level of service. from then on, taxpayers could expect the same level of service when dealing with the irs as they get from a financial institution or a retailer. or, so it seemed.
special report – fixing the irs: irs #fails at online services spell problems for professionals | tax accountants fill the breach of a failing irs | beware the ez way out | can the irs improve its phone service? | when clients face ‘unreal’ irs audits | irs warns about private debt collectors for tax season 2018 | underfunded irs swamped with problems | irs in retreat from communities | military personnel face new battles at home: the irs | as new economy surges, irs falls further behind | is the irs winning the battle against identity theft? | irs mulls raising fees to cover budget shortfalls |
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such brave words for a brave new world of tax collection! alas, the promise of better service has not combined well with congressional cuts to the irs budget. the brunt of those cuts is felt at the interface of frustrated taxpayers and stretched-thin irs agents.
phone calls are the most common interface. each year some 95 million people ring up their favorite revenue service on its toll-free lines. this year the irs expects only four in 10 callers to get through to one of the many human beings who work there. that leaves 57 million people trying to explain their problem to a robot or, in untold millions of cases, just hanging up and getting back to their tax returns with an attitude somewhat less than pro-compliance.
the national taxpayer advocate, an independent service within the irs, says that the service must and can do better, even with its increasingly limited resources. the nta offers several recommendations in its 2017 annual report to congress,
with too few agents to handle america’s myriad (to say the least) income tax issues, the irs has been trying to shift inquiries to automated phone assistance, online resources, tax-filing software and the only entities with a pulse who stand between taxpayers and the service, the nation’s 1.2 million tax preparers.
is dog food deductible?
but those “channels of information,” the nta says, aren’t enough to replace phone calls. tax apps can do only so much, 13 million americans lack access to the internet in their homes, 44 million lack broadband access and a lot of people just don’t feel like engaging a tax preparer for some dumb question regarding the deductibility of dog food for the security department of their home-based business. taxpayers just want to make a toll-free call and talk to an irs agent who can answer their question without getting snippy about it.
the irs’s 2016 customer satisfaction survey found that 46 percent of all callers first tried to find their answer at irs.gov. in other words, only 54 percent were able to find their answer online. the 46 percent failure rate of the online solution should discourage the irs from trying to push people to an information channel that is failing to present the proper information – information that an irs agent might be able to provide in just a few seconds.
the irs tries to measure its telephone effectiveness, but the nta says it needs to be asking an additional kind of question. asking about professionalism and accuracy isn’t enough. the service should be probing to find out why the caller resorted to the phone rather than the other channels of information.
the nta also points out that unhappy telephone assistors make for unhappy callers. while most customer account services employees are glad to help and hold some pride in performing an essential service, the nta report said, “many feel they don’t have the knowledge or skills necessary to accomplish organizational goals.”
the solution: “the irs should give telephone assistors a sense of ownership over their work by equipping them with the tools and issue-focused training to help resolve a caller’s inquiry directly in as few steps as possible, thereby improving employee satisfaction and call quality.”
nice idea! but that means the irs needs vast ranks of agents as proficient and pro-customer as tax preparers who in a sense do the same job.
impossible? it doesn’t have to be.
recommendations for improved telephone assistance
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develop a comprehensive strategy for improving its telephone service to be included in its next strategic plan and in its annual appropriate requests, with specific initiatives to increase taxpayer satisfaction.
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incorporate qualitative measures, such as first contact resolution rate, used by other government agencies and in the private sector to measure a caller’s overall experience and satisfaction with the call.
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provide telephone assistors additional issue-focused training to help resolve a caller’s inquiry directly in as few steps as possible.
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upgrade phone hardware technology to provide virtual hold and scheduled callback options to callers.
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institute a system similar to a 311 system through which an operator can transfer a taxpayer to a specific office within the irs that handles his or her issue or case.
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reinstate the capability for taxpayers to receive year-round tax law assistance over the telephone, including a second tier of assistance for more complex law issues.