Discussion:At H&R Block, "your satisfaction is guaranteed"??

So, the web site says: "At H&R Block your satisfaction is guaranteed." http://www.hrblock.com/taxes/products/office/fast_money_options.html (check the bottom, check other pages. And there's just no way we can do a Sears-like guarantee.)

"your satisfaction is . . . "

which would certainly surprise many of the customers at: http://consumeraffairs.com/finance/hr_block_ral.html

Sure, some like it, those who get their money promptly, the whole thing flows smoothly. But where we really fall down is when things don't flow smoothly. We have no way of resubmitting the application to the bank. We don't even have a way of getting a straight answer from the bank, and that drives some customers positively up the wall, understandably so. That would bother me a lot, too. And we are supposed to buffalo off the customer with a 1-888 number. What the company hierarchy doesn't seem to understand is that the customer then storms the store (the company, at times, really is that disengaged; the response that clumsy).

I have had some success at showing the customer on the computer that their return has been accepted by the IRS. I have also sat at a desk while we together called the bank and tried to wade through the voice mail, and then get a straight answer from a real human being, or some semblance of a straight answer. I have also tried the method of moving my chair halfway around the desk so that we are literally sitting on the same side.

You've got to tell the customer at the beginning that it's a loan application. And, if you want to be ethical about the whole thing, you have got to tell each and every customer about cross-collection, in a meaningful way, not merely in a technical and formal way. There's really no other way to do it, even though it's relatively rare.

=====================

The upshot, if you're thinking about starting your own store front (as I have, although now shying away from it) is that:

HR Block is weak on the operational side, but strong on the marketing side. And that is not to be discounted. Consider competing against a restaurant chain that has mediocre food; you're still up against a whole lot.

I do offer a Sears-like guarantee. Why not? I would rather not have a client than to have a pissed off client telling people that I did bad work (bad work being their interpretation as to why they owe or didn't get a huge refund).

This past tax season I had a $1,200 tax return that the woman was upset about (I keyed in all of the trades that her broker did - she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars plus investment fees). She didn't get mad at her investment advisor for churing the account, she got mad at me because she thought I was trying to take advantage of her.

So I took the return back and gave her a 100% refund. So I'm out several hours of my work. Maybe I should have called her with an estimate of the fee because the prior year she didn't have 1/4 of the trades and in her defense, she is quite ignorant about tax and my work. A lesson learned.

Let her be someone else's problem. I have lots of people who think I'm great, I don't need one who thinks I'm not.

In addition, there's the human aspect. I'm sure you've observed it with a bank. A bank employee will argue tooth and nail in favor of a fee, even though they get no commission. To do otherwise would disvalue their work.

My old boss once told me, there are three aspects to a project -- speed, quality, and cost. You can have any two but not the third. If you need to find someone to do a quality job quickly, you have to pay well. If you pay them crap, then expect a shoddy job or missed deadlines.

You don't e-file each return in front of the client, do you? That would seem to be a waste of time to have to do this 8-10 times a day instead of once a day.

At one meeting, the district manager told us that commissions made were private and people should not be talking about them. Perhaps so. People certainly should not be pressured to talk about them. But with a flat-out rule, what’s missed is that people can’t see that hardly anyone else is getting a commission either!

The typical Block office has a couple of 10+ year pros and a bunch of first- and second-year preparers, heavy on the first. The long-term people stay because they enjoy the work. People who are hoping to make some real money tend not to come back.

What I suspect the typical CPA office does not offer, for non-CPAs and non-EAs, is a chance to have real face-to-face interaction with clients and do real taxes, not merely sitting in a backroom doing data entry.

“your satisfaction is guaranteed,” okay, about that. I was amazed to see that on our web site, for we don’t follow through. What’s the alternative? The alternative is to hemorrhage clients, and that’s what happens. And if one of the executives were to spend a couple of afternoons in a store, it would be obvious. It might also be obvious from the above consumer web site, which is a gift. I don’t think the company looks at it that way, but that’s what it is, a gift. It is someone doing your research for you, and all you have to do is open your eyes and look at it with a somewhat open mind and ask, does this happen? Yeah, it does, on a fairly regular basis.

Again, weak operationally, but strong on marketing. It’s like Olive Garden. I think the food there is pretty mediocre and not all that great a value for the money, but then again, they often have a fair number of cars in the parking lot. So, they would not be that easy to compete with.

(Kevinh5, I'm working on a response for you.)

Long-time tax pros still only get 9-10 dollars an hour?? And no commission on top of that?? They must really love doing taxes. You'd think they would be getting at least $25 an hour. The point of discouraging dialog on the pay is so nobody finds out how everybody is screwed.

Okay, at Block, the client can often be sitting at the desk for 80 minutes, yes eighty minutes, and that's a long time to sit at a desk. Once you to the refund number, there's at least 20 minutes left and that's awkward. There's a credit screen, years at residence, years at employment, driver's license number, etc. Some of the younger tax pros are embarrassed at this screen, but this screen is actually your friend. 'This is a credit application. This is our one and only chance. We have no way of resubmitting . . . the loan, if approved, is based, in part on your anticipated refund, and also on other credit determinations that the bank does not share with us . . . ' This is what you've got to convey to the client in attitude and word.

Once a return is finalized, it is batched on a server in the back and sent every two hours or when about ten returns accumulate. The countdown, and let's say you have 45 minutes left, is useful if the preparer remembers, snap, I forgot something. Then you can pull it back from the server and make the correction, or more commonly just check and see, yeah, I did it okay.

Okay, the good parts of Block. A lot of people like the walk-in aspect. The Send-A-Friend coupons (where the friend gets sent a check for $15 and the friend bringing in the coupon gets $15 off) are surprisingly popular.

Some of the established pros are remarkably good and even the new people really do try, and some of the new people are good and have a feel with taxes and know how far to push their abilities and how far not to. My primary loyalty is to my coworkers and my clients, not to the company hierarchy. (probably not going to be doing it this year)

$10 an hour? That surprises me, too. That does not sound right. This lady medium disclosed. Sometimes if someone got the bonus last year, they can get more per hour the following year, but only like twelve an hour. So, I think it's still largely the case that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 an hour. The long-time employees are usually either retired persons or persons who have other jobs, and alright paying jobs, who simply enjoy doing taxes.

And a tremendous opportunity for CPAs, don't you agree! If you hire early, feel people out, see what they know, maybe with a preliminary phone interview first. You just might be surprised.

That reminds me of some advice I heard military retirees get when looking for a new civilian job. Don't count your military retirement pay when you negotiate for a salary. In other words, get paid what you're worth and don't let your retirement pay subsidize your new employer.

On the other hand, I can understand the trade-off of getting less pay in return for a very flexible work schedule.

Let's get back to the part about satisfaction. I've personally never been entirely satisfied with a filled in tax return. It would take a great deal more than that to satisfy me, and this is the reason I discourage all these gurantees: you may be in for more than you bargained for.

And there are preparers at Block who know quite a bit more than I do.

The name is glover.

You might get a resume from someone who has an accounting degree, has their CPA, five years experience, and who wants to move on. That's textbook.

But if that resume doesn't cross your desk, you may also want to consider the person who has eight years experience at H&R Block (or Jackson Hewitt, or Liberty).

You're also a natural born writer. You can teach a person grammar, spelling, the rules and all that, but you can't teach them to write, and you can write.

Now, I'm not a tax man myself. I have a weakness for naps, and nothing brings on a nap for me like tax. Nevertheless, if I was a betting man (which I guess I am becuase it's a gamble to get up every day), I'd put some money on you.

But, even if you are 70, and not 31, you're still a fine writer; and since so few people can write, that's got to be helpful to you somehow.

As far as a resume with eight years of experience at Block, I can assure you that many practitioners here would consider hiring you. The EA, CPA, etc. can always be added, but the experience is really irreplacable. In addition, I've seen several pros here mention that they desired to send a new person through the Block training, and they were trying to figure out how to do it. Besides, we've had some great posters here with a Block backgroud. Tincook was one of them, if I remember correctly.

Alright, now, I want to clear up a couple of things. I was pitching for some of my co-workers. I myself only have approximately four years of experience. And that’s probably as specific as I wish to be at this time.

And, as far as my pen name, glover is the name of a philosopher I like. And 1978, that was one of my favorite years. I was in high school and it was a very eventful year (I pulled away from a doctrinaire church, I saw the movie Capricorn One, I got pretty good at disco dancing).

And there you have it!

[1]

Don't get it.

Following is a customer complaint by Rob. And, if you look past the misspellings (and please do), the guy makes some pretty good points:

Rob of Coral Springs, FL April 18, 2009

“ . . . kept saying over and over... so its definately going to be there within 48hours correct. Of course she told me what i wanted to hear. If she wouldve did her job and properly inform me verbally, that it was not a fast refund, it was just a loan from a independant bank that has no direct affiliation with them I would have balked. In fact if they said, there is a 1% chance i wont get the fast refund, I would have still balked. I know my credit is bad, and she never told me that i am authorizing them to run my credit. I tried to read most of the stuff she handed me. But i had like 60papers to sign. . . .

" . . . Going back at everything i signed, i still cant see where it says It is based on credit and i authorize them to check it. . . .

“ . . . . But this time Im cool because i have 150dollars less, and a nice shiney green card that charges me everytime I use it for normal transcation and daily ATM usage. . . .

" . . . Oh by the way to call HR Block and tell them my story after getting hungup on and the rang around...deducted me 4.00. . . . ”

http://consumeraffairs.com/finance/hr_block_ral.html

Instead of using other's comments (rather than your own experience) to bring down HRB, how about if you state what YOU are going to different, based on what you learned? Tell us what YOUR guarantee is going to be. I told you mine.

Again, Olive Gardens, okay, the salads are good, the entrees are mediocre, but they still have a full parking lot.

Or Blockbuster, yeah, they have stumbled all over the place regarding late policy, at least three different policies that I am aware of, but I'm not sure it really matters. They're a large outfit and they roll on. Losing some customers, but such a large customer base to begin with, it's a long arc before it catches up with them.

So if you were a Mon-n-Pop competing with them, you'd have to make sure to get the same new releases the same Tuesday morning and get them in enough quantity so that you wouldn't run out on Friday and Saturday nights, and you'd have to heavily advertise this fact. (And even then, I think Blockbuster has also gone the netflix route, where you can get stuff by mail, return it to the store, mix and match. So, they'd be hard to compete with even if you were very solid and consistently solid on the operational side.)

The perception with H&R Block is that they have extra pull with the IRS, (not true, or maybe the IRS is a little quicker fixing their efile glitches than independents). Also, the perception that they have swung a good deal with the bank, and that might be a little bit true, but maybe it works to the benefit of HRB. It certainly doesn't work to the benefit of the client.

If I were to set up a storefront where I was serving low- and modest-income clients with RALs (and the occasional higher income client), I would basically be a franchisee of either HSBC or, more likely, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust. And I'm not really interested in doing that.

The guarantee I would offer: If we make a mistake, we will pay penalty and interest. You are only responsible for the tax itself.

(That is, Block got it right the first time! They still have this guarantee, which is called "standard", but it's overlaid with all this other junk.)

About the consumer website, and some people have a good experience, check out Ashley immediately above Rob. And Rob has a sense of humor about it, and he's not devastated not getting the money when he was led to believe he was. Imagine if he was, he gets a run around on the phone, and then he storms the store. It is not unusual to have three angry, frustrated customers in one day. It's also not unusual to have a couple of smooth days in a row.

Approximately 20% of the clients who apply for the loan do not get approved.

I've worked for HRB for over seven years and am an EA. My client base is respectable and I do tax returns for clients from all walks of life from EITC to business owner to corporate executive. I live taxes, awake and asleep, during tax season. Most other times of the year, too.

I've also managed a large HRB office and have dealt first hand with unhappy clients and have coordinated with our home office to resolve issues to the client's satisfaction. Sometimes it's our perception of satisfaction, sometimes it's the client's. Sometimes there just aren't any good answers because it is impossible to give the client the answer they want and still comply with the law.

Make no mistake, HRB cares passionately about customer service and are very serious about taking care of every client, every time.

The tax business is a people business, albeit a very unique people business. It takes good "hard skills" such as the understanding and appropriate implementation of tax laws, using software to complete and file tax returns, and a lot more than most people realize.

The "soft skills" necessary to communicate effectively with your clients are just as important and are often overlooked in this business. (In addition to my EA work, I teach those hard and soft skills for HRB.)

If you can successfully perform both of these skills together, you should have a client who likes you, trusts you and relies upon you. From this spring client loyalty and referrals. And, we all know what those two things do for the bottom line.

That example is is really one of those exceptional circumstances. I see and hear the same stories CPA's hear, only the shoe is on the other foot, the stories are about CPA's.

None of us are perfect. We just do the best we can. Sometimes it isn't good enough and you get the "middle of the night sweats" when you wake up thinking you made a mistake. And sometimes there are people on either side of the highway who shouldn't be doing tax returns.

I just find it interesting when I hear the people telling me they love H&R Block because they save them so much tax money each year, and when you find out why there's some kind of deduction, exemption, credit, status, etc they are claiming that clearly they do not qualify for. I actually had an H&R client (married couple, living together) drop off their information to me this year because they said H&R Block was too expensive. Then when they came in to pick up their copy and sign the 8879 they refused to pay me because I wouldn't allow them to file separate so one of them could claim head of household status. They said they had been doing it that way ever since they started going to H&R Block so obviously I didn't know what I was doing.

There are going to be those who will paint Block with a broad brush or want to bash it, based on a selected number of opinions they hear...why? Simple: clients who have good experiences, which are the large majority, don't complain! They're not the ones who are making noise, or leaving to go to a competitor. Common sense. If Block was so bad, why do clients return? Why hasn't the IRS investigated the company?

I find a number of contributors on the board have the arrogance to assume they're automatically superior because they're independent and that everyone who works for a chain is incompetent. How does that explain the clients who return to their same tax pro year after year because that client has found someone with the expertise in getting the return prepared correctly. Of course Block has problems, being that a lot of the tax preparers are seasonal and every year there will be first-year preparers, and there are mistakes made, due dilgence ignored. There are procedures to try to doublecheck new preparers, but it's not absolute. Even willful or intentional disregard, this can happen anywhere, read the frequent news where the IRS disbars dishonest independent preparers.

So anyone can talk about a few unhappy clients or incorrect returns from Block, it's short-sighted (to be polite) to jump to a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence and assume that's the majority.

I knew about third party debt collection. I tried to inform my clients, and I probably did an okay job. (I would have done a better job had I been less timid. My thinking was to keep informing clients until the office manager told me I couldn't. I wish I would have been proactive and gone ahead and had that conversation, and shown him the part of the loan application I had a problem with and told him I wanted to inform clients.)

And, for one lady who was my client, the computer showed "debt offset." This was after e-filing and after IRS acceptance. In other words, we couldn't do anything about it. Her refund was already committed to going through the bank. I asked the office manager about it. He said I would just have to tell her. He was entirely matter-of-fact and entirely 'efficient' about it. He did not offer to be there with me. He did not offer to be available for back-up.

I called Household Finance and tried get more information. That part I wish I would have done differently, more in respect for her privacy and trying to offer her what little choice I could. I believe my thinking was to have some kind of useful information to offer her. In any case, I got no useful information beyond the phrase "debt offset." And it felt like, not that the Household employee was withholding information for client privacy, but rather that such was the only information the computer gave him.

And then I felt my way to a very good decision. The lady had had an expected refund, with earned income credit, of four thousand plus dollars. This was somewhere between a third and a fourth of her expected income for the year. And so, it wouldn't really matter how 'empathetic' I was in talking with her. It wouldn't matter how 'sympathetic' I was. The only thing I could do is avoid making it worse. I could just be decent, straightforward, keep it simple. And that's really all I could do, for I did not have much information.

I went to the room with the files and supplies for at least a little bit of quiet and privacy.

When I got her on the phone, she was surprised, she didn't know what "debt offset" meant, and then she was shocked, and then she was devastated.

She asked basic questions such as What does it mean? When will I know? (I don't remember the exact questions, but she asked questions of this sort)

She was in tears. That was obvious, even over the phone.

And at one point she said, more to herself than to me, "oh my God, charges will be filed . . . "

The most I could tell her was that the bank should be contacting her with more information, but at this point, it was up to the bank.

And afterwards, my office manager offered no help, no kind of debriefing, no factual information of any sort that might help in the future.

I wish you would help me get a refund to pay off my debts.

What drives me crazy is people who are in the soup economically and won't even try to better their situation. Go to school, learn a new skills, take a 2nd job and take control of your destiny!

Some of the biggest corporations in the country are some of the biggest crooks, and they sit around all day and try to figure out how to rip people off. And they succeed. That's the new business model.

I hope we at least have a little more suspicion of the de-regulators and the free marketeers after the recent financial disaster they led us into.

What we need is a return of integrity and a fair deal by businesses (note, I assume that profits can be made with integrity). If we get that, THEN I will judge average Joe more strongly for his decisions, as you suggest. If the business class will not give people a fair deal and act with integrity: regulate the h*ll out of them, or shut them down one by one.

And we might also add that the service economy has not yet panned out, at least not in providing middle-class jobs which take the place of manufacturing.

These are the same drug companies we gifted in 2003 when the Medicare Prescription Drug bill actually made it illegal for our government to negotiate volume discounts for the American people.

The current House health reform bill seeks to correct this mistake, but we'll see how far it gets in the Senate.

Anyway, you see how Pfizer returned the favor (the favor in the form of a gift from the taxpayer), they didn't, that's how they returned it. Instead, they acted like they were above the law. Typical.

Believe it or not, teenagers and young adults seem a whole lot smarter to me and a whole lot more savvy today than when I was young