CS-10-247 - Supporting Statement

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Clearance Package

Customer Satisfaction Survey for e-Help Division

2011

Internal Revenue Service

Wage & Investment, Survey Administration & Analysis

OMB #1545-1432

The Paperwork Reduction Act requires that the IRS display an OMB control number on all public information requests. The OMB Control Number for this study is 1545-1432. Also, if you have any comments regarding the time estimates associated with this study or suggestions on making this process simpler, please write to the, Internal Revenue Service, Tax Products Coordinating Committee, SE:W:CAR:MP:T:T:SP, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC  20224.

OMB SUPPORTING STATEMENT

FOR THE STUDY TO MEASURE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

OF IRS WAGE AND INVESTMENT e-help Survey - 2011

Background and Objectives

The e-help Operations, Strategy, and Support (EOSS) Office resides in the Wage and Investment (W&I) Customer Account Services (CAS) Operating Unit and is responsible for providing policy direction and oversight to four customer contact centers known as the e-help Desk. The e-help Desk provides support to external customers who experience technical problem using IRS online electronic products. e-help Desk customers include: electronic return originators, enrolled agents, intermediate service providers, reporting agents, financial institutions, software developers, and transmitters. Electronic products include online services such as e-file, Modernized e-file, Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, and e-Services.

The purpose of the e-help Customer Satisfaction Project is to establish baseline customer satisfaction levels and to track e-help Desk performance over time. The key goals of the e-help Customer Satisfaction Project include surveying e-help Desk customers to identify:

1. Customer satisfaction with help desk services (including call handle/hold times, accuracy of assistor responses, etc.);

2. Customer needs (including preferred method of contact); and

3. Work processes that need improvement.

The Compliance Services Collection Operation Customer Satisfaction Survey results are also used to track changes in customer satisfaction attributable to specific changes made to this service, such as adding or changing scripts.

The government contractor will be experienced and knowledgeable in administering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative customer satisfaction data. To maximize the feedback received from e-help Desk customers, the contractor shall administer the telephone survey. The survey will be administered using a 5 point rating scale, with “5” being the most satisfied and “1” being the least satisfied.

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The survey will be conducted via an automated computer system. The contractor will administer the survey by phone (IVR) on a continuous basis. Standard procedures will be used in order to obtain the highest response rate possible. The contractor should provide for making changes to, or adding “drill down” questions on at least a semi-annual basis.

Design and Methodology

The contractor must plan to complete approximately 400 telephone interviews per site per quarter or approximately 6,400 e-help Desk telephone customers per year, stratified by each of the four e-help Desk sites. This requires making five attempts per day, five days per week for 52 weeks at each of the 4 e-help sites to yield approximately 5,200 attempts per quarter, but the contractor will devise and implement the sampling plan. A precision margin of 5% and confidence interval of 95% is expected. The telephone universe is just under 500,000.

The contractor will develop the sampling specifications for W&I to apply to the sampling databases and provide training on the sampling instrument. Each of the e-help Desk sites will report its sampling efforts to the vendor on a daily basis. The contractor will monitor the sampling process to ensure the procedures provide the desired number of respondents and will coordinate with appropriate W&I personnel on sampling and related matters.

Data to be Collected

e-Help taxpayer customer satisfaction respondent data is collected.

How Data Collected & Used

The data collection contractor administers the survey by telephone on a monthly basis. The project contractor monitors the survey’s progress in conjunction with the data collection contractor. Standard procedures are used in order to obtain the highest response rate possible for this telephone survey.

The contractor shall develop and execute a sampling plan that is acceptable to the government. The sampling plan will include as a minimum:

1. Methodology

2. Target population and sampling frame

3. Sampling specifications including projected monthly sample size

4. Expected reliability of the sample estimates

5. Sampling limitations including exclusions from monthly sampling frames

6. Proposed weighting scheme

7. Projected response rate

8. Strategy for achieving target response within key strata

The contractor will develop the sampling specifications for W&I to apply to the sampling databases and provide training on the sampling instrument. Each of the e-HELP Desk sites will report its sampling efforts to the vendor on a daily basis. The contractor will monitor the sampling process to ensure the procedures provide the desired number of

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respondents and will coordinate with appropriate W&I personnel on sampling and related matters.

The contractor provides:

• Analysis of the open-ended drill-down questions;

• Monthly raw data to designated IRS personnel;

• Raw data in SPSS and Excel formats quarterly to IRS; and

• Cleansed data files and open-ended comments quarterly.

The survey responses will be scored on a 5-point rating scale, with 1 being very dissatisfied and 5 being very satisfied. All survey responses will be Privacy. The contractor shall ensure that e-help Desk customers responding to the survey are guaranteed anonymity. The overall satisfaction item is, “Everything considered, please rate your overall satisfaction with the service you received during this call” or for e-mail “Everything considered, please rate your overall satisfaction with the service you received.

The contractor will use basic and advanced statistical techniques including, but not limited to, analysis of variance and the prioritization of improvement initiatives, to provide:

• Survey counts and overall response rates for the four e-help Desk sites.

• Overall level of customer satisfaction for the e-help Desk.

• Averages and frequencies for all ratings questions.

• Differences in satisfaction ratings across customer segments.

• Areas of service, in priority order, where the e-help Desk should focus efforts to improve overall satisfaction.

• Cross tabulations of variables.

• Analysis of open-ended comments

• Quarterly comparisons with prior months cumulative data

The contractor will include any relevant database variables in the analysis. The contractor and W&I will agree on the exact specifications and contents of reports. Separate open-ended comments will be provided within 30 days after the end of each quarter.

The national reports will show the calculation of a weighted fiscal year cumulative score for overall Customer Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction compared to the same period for at least the prior fiscal year, if available.

Raw data will be provided to a distribution list of IRS personnel and made available through Pinpoint within five business days of the end of each month.

Within five business days of the end of each month, the contractor will e-mail the calculation of percent overall weighted dissatisfied and percent overall weighted satisfied for the month to a distribution list of IRS personnel.

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The contractor will produce reports that include:

1. Leverage analysis

2. Satisfaction mean scores of rating questions

3. Distribution of dissatisfied, neutral, and satisfied % of rating questions

4. Quarterly comparisons with prior year’s cumulative data

5. Summary

At the end of each fiscal year, the contractor will summarize the quantitative ratings and produce one annual national report showing overall satisfaction scores for e-help Desk service items and improvement priorities. This report will provide results for each of the four W&I e-help Desk sites. The contractor will weight the survey responses to reflect accurately the entire customer base.

The contractor must also produce a one-page quarterly summary report in Word format and distribute it via e-mail to individuals specified by the IRS.

As an option, the contractor will at a mutually convenient time, make a presentation to appropriate IRS staff summarizing the e-help Desk survey findings and recommendations for change and implementation.

The contractor will prepare quarterly reports and an annual national report with site-level information. The quarterly reports will be delivered within 30 days after the end of each quarter. The annual report will be delivered within 30 days after the end of each fiscal year. The contractor will also deliver anonymous monthly data files within 5 days of the end of each month and open-ended comments each quarter as described in Task 5. The contractor will calculate monthly overall satisfaction and dissatisfaction rates and e-mail the results to IRS personnel.

The contractor will also provide the Summary report each quarter.

Cost of Study

The estimated cost for administering this survey is $134,013.

Dates of Collection Begin/End

Data collection runs the 2011 calendar year from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011. Vendor will have to March 31, 2012 to complete all reports.

Who is Conducting the Research/Where

The contractor is responsible for administering the telephone survey, pulling the sample, conducting data analysis and creation of reports.

Estimates of the Burden of Data Collection

The survey interview is designed to minimize burden on the taxpayer. The time that a respondent takes to complete the phone survey is carefully considered and only the

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most important areas are being surveyed. The average time of survey completion is expected to be 8 minutes. The questions are generally one sentence in structure and on an elementary concept level.

The e-help Survey is attached. Completion each interview is expected to take approximately 8 minutes. The questionnaire includes rating questions and open ends with a 60% response rate. The total number of burden hours is estimated to be 1,803 hours.

Respondents: 12,480 completed interviews x 8 minutes 1,664 hour

Non-respondents: 8,320 attempts x 1 minute 139 hours

Thus the total burden hours for the survey would be (1,664 + 139) 1,803 burden hours

The contractor will document the sampling plan, including the target population and sampling frame, sampling specifications, expected reliability of the sample estimates, sampling limitations, preliminary sampling weights, and the strategy for achieving target quotas within key strata.

Attachments

Compliance Services Collection Operation Survey

The Paperwork Reduction Act requires that the IRS display an OMB control number on all public information requests. The OMB Control Number for this study is 1545-1432. Also, if you have any comments regarding the time estimates associated with this study or suggestions on making this process simpler, please write to the, Internal Revenue Service, Tax Products Coordinating Committee, SE:W:CAR:MP:T:T:SP, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC  20224.

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W&I e-Help OMB, CY2011