Conclusion

IRS must significantly improve telephone assistance if it is to meet its long- term goal of providing world-class customer service to the tens of millions of taxpayers that call. While IRS has undertaken efforts to analyze its performance and identify ways to improve, these efforts have been incomplete. IRS’ analyses did not cover all of the key management decisions and other key factors that affect telephone performance. Designing and conducting a comprehensive analysis of the key management decisions and other key factors that affect telephone performance in each filing season will be a difficult task because the factors that affect performance are multiple and interrelated. However, without a more comprehensive analysis of the factors that affect performance, IRS management lacks the information it needs to make decisions to improve performance.
What GAO Found

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must significantly improve telephone assistance if it is to meet its long-term goal of providing world-class customer service to the tens of millions of taxpayers who call. Although IRS has tried to analyze its performance and identify ways to improve, these efforts have been incomplete. IRS' analyses did not cover all of the key management decisions and other key factors that affect telephone performance. Designing and conducting a comprehensive analysis of the key management decisions and other key factors that affect telephone performance in each filing season will be difficult because the factors that affect performance are multiple and interrelated. However, without a more comprehensive analysis of the factors that affect performance, IRS lacks the information it needs to make decisions to improve performance.