RECOMMENDATION 3388
RECOMMENDATION TEXT:
Provide an option to all, or some statistically number, of the callers to the Toll-Free Phone Lines to participate in a standardized, voluntary customer service survey that provides direct input on the taxpayer’s experience. Taxpayers have the right to quality service. An efficient and effective way to determine the level of satisfaction with the customer service provided through the Toll-Free Phone Lines is to incorporate an opportunity for the taxpayers to provide direct input regarding their input regarding the level of service (LOS) they received. Although Customer Service Surveys were mandated by RRA 98 and Executive Order 12862, the focus of the LOS measurements has been to identify the number of calls answered rather than the taxpayer’s satisfaction with the service. To encourage participation in a survey on the taxpayers’ satisfaction with their experience, the number of questions should be minimal. For example, a four-question survey could include:1.Are you satisfied with the assistance you received?2.How many times have you contacted the IRS about this problem?3.Would you recommend this service to others?4.Do you have any additional comments?
IRS Action: Not adopted
IRS Survey questions are regulated by OMB for consistency across government agencies and in compliance with OMB Section 280 A-11. Also, the current questions asked are designed to measure customer experience.
RECOMMENDATION 3389
RECOMMENDATION TEXT:
Design the system of asking taxpayers to participate in the customer service survey in a way that is not dependent on the CSR. The best practice for obtaining surveys on customer service requires that the person providing the service does not have the opportunity to skew the responses by only asking certain customers to participate in the survey based on their interactions with that person. It is human nature to try to capture the positive reactions. The system should either automatically provide the opportunity to participate to every caller, or on some randomly generated basis.
IRS Action: Considered
IRS will work to identify if there is a way, within our current phone system infrastructure, to offer taxpayer’s survey opportunities to taxpayers that are not reliant on the CSR.
