Improving taxpayer engagement with a best-in-class contact center
Key takeaways
Responding to a surge of 10K+ taxpayers in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) call queue as well as remote work needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, Maximus mobilized 500+ new team members and a best-in-class contact center solution; established the agency’s first work-from-home (WFH) infrastructure; and provided industry-leading training using advanced technology learning models.
A contact center to meet the mission and the moment.
Situation
During the pandemic, millions of Americans faced unprecedented economic hardships. In response, Congress issued stimulus checks to qualified citizens and families and passed monumental legislation to help mitigate the sharp economic decline. These programs required the IRS to rapidly disburse refunds and payments and quickly scale its customer service representative (CSR) team to address increased call volume.
Challenge
The IRS needed rapid and comprehensive surge support capabilities, laying the groundwork for continuous modernization and improved taxpayer experiences. With stay-at-home orders in place, the agency also needed technology to assist remote work.
Solution
The Maximus team responded to the IRS’s challenge by rapidly:
- Standing up a digitally enabled contact center solution along with CSR staff augmentation and training within a WFH infrastructure
- Integrating advanced technologies and capabilities to address immediate challenges without sacrificing security or compliance
- Establishing an Economic Impact Payment call process, FAQs for economic relief legislation, and prioritization of live-agent resolution for Advanced Child Tax Credit calls
How We Did It
Our team leveraged a trusted partnership of 30+ years with the IRS to provide:
- Best-in-class, secure, cloud-based, omni-channel contact center with both automated and live agent service
- Rapid onboarding of new CSRs within five days of request, scaling to 3,200 CSRs within 30 days
- Training and supervision using Microsoft Teams and Amazon Web Services with secure protocols
- First-of-its-kind IRS WFH contact center technology infrastructure
- Advanced technologies, including speech analytics and Maximus Virtual Intelligent Assistant for AI-based voice response
Results
- Addressed gaps in caller coverage and resources, responding to 70K+ calls/day during peak demand
- Managed 5M+ caller inquiries in 2021
- Improved citizen engagement with anytime, anywhere communication options
- Streamlined business processes with call and screen recording, data analytics, and AI-based technologies
- Improved citizen trust, service delivery efficiencies, customer satisfaction ratings, and overall taxpayer experiences
Our proven solution met the IRS’s short-term surge support needs while establishing long-term improvements to the overall taxpayer experience.