TAP RECOMMENDATION

Callers to toll free lines would hear an offer to participate in an automated customer service survey at the end of their call. Those who opt to participate will receive an automated call back to participate in an interactive voice response (IVR) survey of the type presently being used by the IRS.

Benefits

Automatically inviting all callers to participate in a customer experience survey will improve the image of the IRS and increase the amount of feedback available to IRS managers. It would advance the IRS goal of allowing customers’ concerns to be heard. Furthermore, automating the invitation and implementing a call back feature could remove the CSR entirely from the survey protocol, thereby freeing up IRS resources and reducing costs related to the time CSRs presently spend making survey invitations and transferring calls. Finally, increasing the opportunity for taxpayers to share their views on customer service advances the goal of allowing more taxpayers the ability to be heard, if they so choose.

Barriers

While current surveys are IVR and automated, adding the invitation and call back mechanisms would involve expense and system resources.

Thank you for your recommendation regarding our Customer Satisfaction Surveys.

We value the feedback received from callers who participate in our Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey. The information from the reports is used to identify key focus areas for improvement. We realize if the survey is available to all taxpayers, this will provide more information to assist us with making improvements.

We are exploring the feasibility of automatic survey invitation after the technology upgrade to Investment and Contract Management (ICM) and the move to Internet Protocol (IP) transport technology. These changes are tentatively planned for FY2020 -2021.

Our current surveys are under contract for the next two /three years. Any changes will require renegotiation of the contracts.