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Washington, D.C: -- Customers and employees of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) both continue to find high value in the use by the agency of Problem Solving Days as a means of improving taxpayer customer service, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said today.

NTEU President Robert M. Tobias said an analysis of the August event by the Hay Group, an Arlington, Va., research firm, found that 91 percent of customers gave the highest ratings of 6 or 7, on a 7?point scale, for overall service. The average score in that critical category was 6.5, Tobias said, adding that 70 percent of employees believed that taxpayer relationships were improved by the August activity.

The Problem Solving Day program was initiated by the IRS little more than a year ago in an attempt to provide taxpayers with community?based assistance in resolving continuing issues with the agency. Both customer and employee satisfaction scores have been high throughout the tracking period and have been little changed over the past four months, the NTEU president said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal sector union, representing more than 155,000 employees in 20 agencies and departments, including some 97,000 in the IRS.

"These results show once again," Tobias said, "that when taxpayers have face?to?face interactions with IRS employees, there is a high degree of satisfaction, both in terms of the service they receive and the resolution of their particular tax issue." The August survey reflects the views of 843 customers and 738 employees.

Among taxpayers, 83 percent said they reached agreement on what is needed to resolve their problem; 86 percent said they believed they were treated fairly, whether or not their tax problem was resolved; and 56 percent reported that their experience at Problem Solving Day greatly improved their opinion of the IRS.

Meanwhile, among employees, 94 percent said they "always" or "most of the time" had access to the person or persons they needed to resolve taxpayer issues; 92 percent used the same the same descriptions to characterize their access to tools and resources; and 84 percent responded with a rating of 6 or 7 on the question of having the skills and knowledge necessary to deal with the interpersonal issues presented by taxpayers. Employees rated the August event at 6 for overall satisfaction.

Hay analysts said the data suggest that there is room for improvement, from the taxpayer perspective, on reaching agreement on what it will take to resolve a given problem, and on improving the knowledge base of employees.