The HMRC released its Charter Annual Report for the period of April 2021 to March 2022 and noted that “customer service levels remain the single greatest concern, overshadowing any particular positive or negative behaviours”.
The HMRC commissions independent customer surveys for five customer groups: individuals, small businesses, agents, mid-sized businesses and large businesses each year to assess its performance.
Results from the 2021 annual customer surveys showed customer experience ratings fell back following increases in 2020 across all customer groups and are now closer to pre-pandemic levels with tax agents recording a result that fell below pre-pandemic levels.
The results showed a drop across all sectors. Individuals rated their overall experience of interacting positively with HMRC in 2021 at 62 per cent, a decrease from 68 per cent in 2020. Small businesses went from 82 per cent down to 76 per cent, mid-sized businesses recorded a result of 57 per cent down from 63 per cent the previous year while less than half of the tax agents surveyed (48 per cent) had a positive experience, down from 61 per cent the previous reporting period.
However, overall customer satisfaction with phone, web chat and digital services was consistently high throughout 2021–22, with 82.0 per cent of customers stating they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with HMRC’s phone, web chat and digital services – reaching a high of 84.3 per cent in August 2021.
Despite this high overall proportion of customer satisfaction, more customers were satisfied with digital services at 83.4 per cent than telephony at 65.5 per cent. Customers noted long waiting times and not being given the information they need as reasons for the lower satisfaction with telephony.
HMRC’s Stakeholder Engagement Research provides insights into the views of important stakeholder groups such as parliamentarians, agents, business stakeholders, identifies trends and changes in attitudes, and informs HMRC on ways to improve the way they engage with these stakeholders to better fulfil its strategic objectives. Although stakeholders’ perceptions of HMRC in 2021–22 remained strong all three of the main measures on favourability, trust and performance of the UK’s tax authority had fallen.
The biggest driver of favourability towards HMRC is its performance as the UK’s tax authority, which while still strong had declined since last year. For those stakeholders who said HMRC is performing badly on this measure, poor customer service and responsiveness remain their main concerns. Stakeholders were concerned about how promptly staff deal with issues and there had also been drops in perceptions of staff understanding and responding to issues.
