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09/12/2016

H&R Block: The H Stands for “Inaccurate” (Deep Undercover Part 3)

H&R Block is not cheap, their customer experience isn’t great, and their ackquoorisee is as good as my spelling. But be honest. Is your firm better? How do you know? More importantly, do your clients know?

Price is easy. After writing my post on their pricing, I talked to one CPA who said he’s charging half of what H&R Block does. Half! He’s a CPA! Fortunately he can solve his pricing problem by taking his clients’ documents to H&R Block, have them prepare the return (he’s under no obligation to file with H&R Block), get their pricing, fix the return, charge $50 more than H&R Block, and tell his clients exactly how H&R Block was going to screw them. Brilliant! And it only breaks one confidentiality rule!¹

Category:: Taxes
Comments:: 1

09/11/2016

Deep Undercover at H&R Block Part 2 – Customer Experience

Two years ago, I let Liberty Tax eff up my taxes. This year I allowed H&R Block to do it. In last month’s post, I wrote about H&R Block’s weird-ass pricing. Next month, I’ll tell you all about how hard their accuracy sucked. This post, however, is my story about the H&R Block customer experience.

But this is only my experience. H&R Block files millions of returns every year. So you can’t generalize based solely on one experience. But I will anyways because it’s fun to generalize based solely on one experience.

Category:: Customer Experience, Taxes
Comments:: 2

09/10/2016

Deep Undercover at H&R Block Part 1: The Mystery of the H&R Block Pricing Schedule

Two years ago, I had Liberty Tax do my taxes. Bad Experience. Bad Pricing. They lost my children. Great dance opportunity.
This year I did it again, but this time I went to H&R Block to see how The Block would do. Over the span of my next three blog posts, I’ll to go in detail about H&R Block’s pricing, their customer experience, and their accuracy.¹

Greg HR Block

This post is the one about pricing. But first, I need to tell you how I got here. Read more

Category:: Business, Customer Experience, Other Thoughts, Taxes
Comments:: 8

03/10/2014

Deep Undercover at Liberty Tax

I had Liberty Tax Service do my 2013 taxes. Don’t judge me.

I went because of Walt Disney. I heard he was inspired to create Disneyland because he was grossed out when he took his kids to some nasty carnivals. So I thought about what would gross me out in the accounting profession, and decided to go to Liberty Tax Service – the carneys of the accounting profession – for inspiration.

I arrived at Liberty Tax at 11:00 a.m. on Presidents’ Day. The open-concept office was austere: two small fake trees, white walls, fluorescent lights. The “waiting room” area had some toys for kids to both play with and contract hepatitis from. I assumed it was a temporary office. I was later told that it’s year-round. Read more

Category:: Customer Experience, Pricing, Taxes
Comments:: 7

04/14/2013

The Customer is Always Right, Unless You are Serving the Wrong Customer

Many of us are wrapping up a tough tax season and right now I bet you can name a handful of wonderful clients. And possibly some you would rather refer elsewhere.

Right now, while it’s fresh on your mind, think through these questions with specific customers in mind. I’ll be using two of our customers (names changed) as an example, Bob and Jane.

Did your customer fight your process?

Bob seemed to find our processes easy. He had no trouble paying online before the work was done. He was happy to know the price before the work was done. He did not struggle with reviewing his tax return online, using our online portals to deliver documents, or signing his agreement online. In fact, after I emailed him to let him know his returns had been accepted, he replied with a “You guys rock!” email. Read more

Category:: Innovation, Management and Operations, Taxes
Comments:: 14

12/23/2010

Interview with Ed Jennings, CEO of Copanion

Want to know what the “Promise of the Cloud” is? Listen to the end of Ed’s interview below and you’ll find out! Pretty exciting!

Category:: Business, Computer and Technology, CPA firm, Taxes, Videos
Comments:: 1