IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: The IRS continues to develop and improve service channels to ease taxpayer burden, improve access and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our services. Recent examples include, live chats, chat bots, enhanced automated lines and informational messages. In November 2022, the IRS began developing a measure for telephones and other taxpayer service preferences to more wholistically measure the experience as enhancements are introduced. This measure will include percentage of contact completions through taxpayer preference channels of access, with planned implementation in FY 2025.

The enhancement of Customer Call Back will improve the taxpayer’s experience and satisfaction by allowing taxpayers to save time instead of waiting on hold for an assistor.

The seven customer experience factors outlined in Section 280, pertain primarily to transactional surveys. The Accounts Management toll-free survey, and several other IRS transaction surveys, have been aligned to these standards since 2020. This data, along with operational and performance metrics, are regularly used to measure and report on the taxpayer experience. As new services and related metrics are introduced, the IRS will continue to identify opportunities to improve the way we measure and report the customer experience, in line with government-wide performance management guidelines.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: The IRS will continue to identify opportunities to improve the way we measure and report the customer experience, in line with government-wide performance management guidelines.

TAS RESPONSE: The IRS agrees to implement the recommendation in full; however, the plans described will fall short of fully adopting the recommendation without further actions. The IRS should report the performance on its phone lines using metrics that capture the quality of the taxpayer experience, which the current LOS measure fails to do. Although the IRS has aligned its transactional surveys to the seven customer experience factors outlined in Section 280 since 2020, the IRS should increase transparency of those survey results and how they influence operational plans. Measuring the percentage of contact completions through taxpayer preference channels of access will be a positive step, as it will provide some insight into the experience of taxpayers who are unable to reach live or automated assistance, but more is required to provide a complete measure of the IRS’s performance in telephone service.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Partially Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 7/31/2025

IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: The IRS maintains interest in expanding opportunities to gather taxpayer feedback to improve experiences when using our toll-free phone services. However, we are not in agreement with adding questions about the current IRS phone tree choices since we are in the process of replacing menus/phone trees with new, “utterance based” conversational navigation. By the end of 2024, we plan to include questions on the IRS 1040 toll-free customer survey to gather feedback about this new conversational navigation.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: The IRS plans to include questions on the IRS 1040 toll-free customer survey to gather feedback about this new conversational navigation.

TAS RESPONSE: Implementing conversational navigation to help guide callers to the necessary assistance is a positive step forward, and like the current system, will require user feedback for continuous improvement of the new system. Allowing callers to opt into a survey at the beginning of a call would help capture the experience of a wider population of callers than only offering the survey to those that have been successfully routed to live or automated assistance.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Partially Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 12/31/2024

IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: ​A Taxpayer 360 taskforce has been set up with representation from across all BODs, IT, and TSO to start up a “Taxpayer 360” solution that provides CSRs an integrated interface to access all required taxpayer data to resolve queries. This is a multi-year effort requiring significant data integration across multiple systems (IDRS, AMS, Finesse, etc.) and development and testing of a new “single pane of glass” interface. Our target for FY25 is to stand up an MVP for FS25 that will be piloted with a subset of CSRs on taxpayer calls. The feedback and testing from this pilot will be used to
expand the tool to the full set of CSRs over FY26 and FY27.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: Stand up an MVP for FS25 that will be piloted with a subset of CSRs on taxpayer calls. The feedback and testing from this pilot will be used to expand the tool to the full set of CSRs over FY26 and FY27.

TAS RESPONSE: The IRS agrees to implement the recommendation in part; however, the IRS response fails to address any of the specific features and capabilities included in the recommendation. The IRS’s ability to implement this recommendation will depend not only on the timely implementation of the Taxpayer 360 interface but also in large part its capabilities, which have not been described with any specificity.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Partially Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 1/31/2025

IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: Currently, there is a single question customer satisfaction survey on our chatbots at the end of their chat session that asks, “Was the information presented helpful?” During FY 2025, the IRS is planning to develop and implement a variety of enhanced metrics to capture quantitative and qualitative feedback from taxpayers interacting with our various voicebots and chatbots. This feedback will help inform future enhancements and analyze the effectiveness of the deployed bots to resolve taxpayer inquiries without the need to elevate to a live call.

These enhanced metrics will include: more wholistic measures for the telephone and other taxpayer services (i.e., voicebots, chatbots, live chat, other automated services, and informational messages) that will include the percentage of completions through various channels of access; and more dynamic customer satisfaction surveys for our voicebots and chatbots on their bot experience.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: The IRS is planning to develop and implement a variety of enhanced metrics to capture quantitative and qualitative feedback from taxpayers interacting with various voicebots and chatbots. This feedback will help inform future enhancements and analyze the effectiveness of the deployed bots to resolve taxpayer inquiries without the need to elevate to a live call.

These enhanced metrics will include: more wholistic measures for the telephone and other taxpayer services (i.e., voicebots, chatbots, live chat, other automated services, and informational messages) that will include the percentage of completions through various channels of access; and more dynamic customer satisfaction surveys for voicebots and chatbots on their bot experience.

TAS RESPONSE: Although FY 2025 is after the recommended implementation by the end of FY 2024, the IRS’s planned actions will fully implement the recommendation.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 10/31/2025

IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: ​The IRS has expanded its service streams which includes providing assistance to taxpayers outside of the normal business days and hours (Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.). The IRS offers extended hour services at over 240 Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) locations during the filing season. In addition to the regular hours (Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.), these locations are open Tuesday and Thursday, 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.

The IRS has also brought back its Taxpayer Experience Days (TXD), where taxpayers may visit over 55 TACs throughout the country and receive service on one Saturday each month, February – May. Like extended hours, the IRS is mindful taxpayers may be unavailable during the course of normal working hours, and we want to ensure we are available to assist and provide service to our taxpayers when needed.

This year, the IRS is holding Community Assistance Visits (CAV) in underserved communities, providing service to taxpayers where TACs may not be easily available. The IRS is tentatively scheduled to host 10 events from May 2024 – October 2024.

The IRS currently provides two virtual services to taxpayers, known as Web Service Delivery (WebSD) and Virtual Service Delivery (VSD). When calling to make an appointment to visit a TAC or when visiting a TAC, a taxpayer may be offered the option to receive virtual assistance through the WebSD platform. The taxpayer may receive virtual service at their home by using their computer without having to visit or revisit a TAC.

Regarding VSD, the IRS has partnered with community service outlet hosts, such as libraries, to provide IRS service to taxpayers at 14 locations across the country. The taxpayers can make appointments at these host locations and receive virtual assistance by IRS employees who are located at TACs.

These alternate taxpayer assistance service streams are expected to continue in FY 2025.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: The IRS is holding Community Assistance Visits (CAV) in underserved communities, providing service to taxpayers where TACs may not be easily available. The IRS is tentatively scheduled to host 10 events from May 2024 – October 2024. The IRS has partnered with community service outlet hosts, such as libraries, to provide IRS service to taxpayers at 14 locations across the country. The taxpayers can make appointments at these host locations and receive virtual assistance by IRS employees who are located at TACs. These alternate taxpayer assistance service streams are expected to continue in FY2025.

TAS RESPONSE: During the 2024 filing season, the IRS has delivered on this recommendation to offer hours beyond the traditional core TAC hours by providing taxpayer experience day events and extended hours in more than 240 TACs. The IRS has also committed to providing multiple community assistance events in underserved communities. The IRS has developed and used VSD as a service option for more than eight years; WebSD has been a service option for at least three years. To fully implement this recommendation, the IRS should commit to ensuring taxpayers can obtain an appointment within seven days and offer Saturday service and extended hours at more TAC locations and on more dates throughout the year to fully meet taxpayer demand.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Partially Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 12/31/2024

IRS RESPONSE TO RECOMMENDATION: ​We will review and assess our data to determine if we can measure the number of hours all TACs are available for in-person service and summarize the total.

As an example, we have established a manual process for gathering this data for one of our initiatives. We are tracking the number of hours our TACs are open for extended hours. This tracking involves management personnel reporting when the TAC opens for extended hours and closes for extended hours. Calculations are computed by project team leadership. This process is labor intensive and time consuming.

As we move forward and modernize our systems, we will examine if we can automate the calculation and summarization for all TAC available hours to assist taxpayers.

CORRECTIVE ACTION: We will review and assess our data to determine if we can measure the number of hours all TACs are available for in-person service and summarize the total. As we move forward and modernize our systems, we will examine if we can automate the calculation and summarization for all TAC available hours to assist taxpayers.

TAS RESPONSE: The IRS response indicates it will assess its capability to implement the recommendation but does not commit to doing so once feasibility is determined. Until the IRS can effectively measure the supply of in-person service hours it is providing on an ongoing basis, it will be difficult to match that metric with taxpayer demand for in-person service.

ADOPTED, PARTIALLY ADOPTED or NOT ADOPTED: Partially Adopted

OPEN or CLOSED: Open

DUE DATE FOR ACTION (if left open): 12/31/2024