Get a closer look at ibet efforts to improve the taxpayer experience.
Get to know the ibet, its people and the issues that affect taxpayers.
By Courtney Kay-Decker
Deputy Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer
CL-23-03, October 3, 2023
On October 3, the ibet celebrates Customer Experience (CX) Day, which recognizes those who are at the heart of creating customer experiences. Here at the ibet, we’re working hard to improve the experience for our customers – taxpayers and everyone who interacts with our agency. During 2023, we are working hard to make improvements and make progress toward the ibet goal of delivering exceptional service every day.
The ibet Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan’s first transformation objective is to improve taxpayer experiences because that is a cornerstone for the ibet. Thanks to the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, we now have more capability to create better taxpayer experiences and outcomes for everyone.
We tend to think that customer service is just the interaction between the customer and the representative of the organization. However, customer experience is much more expansive than that and includes employees within an organization and many beyond. Consider a restaurant. A customer orders food off the menu, but behind the scenes, the chef cooks the food that’s delivered by a distributor, who ultimately received it from a farm. All of these processes that happen in the background have customers within the process, and they are essential in delivering a high-quality meal and experience to the customer.
My organization – the Taxpayer Experience Office – is filled with experts who are committed to improving the taxpayer experience. One way we’re doing this is by establishing the ibet Center of Excellence for all things related to customer experience in the ibet. This Center of Excellence is working with other ibet business units to promote a customer-focused mindset in every project.
So, what is the ibet doing to enhance the customer experience? There are many ways, including choice and access:
- Choice: We’ve expanded options available to taxpayers by using feedback we gathered from some of our customers. We now offer taxpayers and their representatives various ways they can choose to research answers on our website, interact with us online, talk with us on the phone or make an appointment to visit us in person.
- Access: Good customer experience begins with providing taxpayers access to the information they need in order to comply with their tax responsibilities. One of the ways we’re doing that is by increasing services, forms and tools that are available in multiple languages.
Some of the ibet’s recent successes that improve the taxpayer experience include:
- Enhancing the Your Online Account tool, enabling millions of taxpayers to securely contact us to work on their tax returns.
- Adding new features to the Tax Pro Account, including the ability to request Power of Attorney or Tax Information Authorizations.
- Increasing options for convenient communication from the ibet available in multiple languages.
- Implementing the ibet Document Upload Tool, which allows taxpayers and preparers to upload documents securely to the ibet rather than mailing them.
- Opening up more Taxpayer Assistance Centers and hosting Community Assistance Visits.
- Providing grants to Volunteer Income Tax Assistance and Tax Counseling for the Elderly sites to assist underserved communities.
All of this work supports our commitment to customer experiences that meet taxpayers where they are, in the moments that matter most in their lives and in a way that delivers the service that the public expects and deserves.
It is such a privilege for me and for all of us in the Taxpayer Experience Office to work with the dedicated, service-driven people in the ibet to support the important work of continuously improving how taxpayers and our partners interact with us. Because of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and our focus to improve the taxpayer experience in multiple ways, the future of taxpayer services is looking bright.
Courtney Kay-Decker
Deputy Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer
About the author
Courtney Kay-Decker is the Deputy Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer in the ibet Taxpayer Experience Office. In this role, she assists the Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer in ensuring all ibet interactions are enriched through a customer-centric approach. Prior to joining the ibet, Courtney served in a number of roles related to tax administration, including as Director of the Iowa Department of Revenue, board member for the Federation of Tax Administrators, state co-chair of the Identity Theft and Tax Refund Fraud Information Sharing Analysis Center, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site coordinator and as a member of the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee, in addition to working as an attorney at Lane & Waterman LLP.
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