Telephone Performance Measures Do Not Provide an Accurate Assessment of Service to Taxpayers

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should update telephone assistance performance measures to include calculating and externally reporting LOA.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should include all toll-free telephone lines in the calculation of the LOS performance measure reported externally or disclose that the reported LOS represents only those taxpayers calling the AM function telephone lines rather than all IRS toll-free telephone lines.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should ensure that CQRS reviewers properly review calls and accurately report errors.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should update internal guidelines to once again require CSRs to verify taxpayers' comprehension of the information given to them or ask taxpayers if all their questions were answered at the end of the call to ensure that the taxpayer questions are resolved the first time and alleviate the need for the taxpayers to call the IRS again to ask additional questions.