Helping Tax firms hire seasonal talent
Helping Tax firms hire seasonal talent
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Tax preparation is a seasonal business. We observed that a lot of our tax firms were unable to predict their staffing needs for the upcoming tax season. During the tax season, hiring becomes even more painful as they are already working towards the tax deadline. Our goal was to solve this problem for Intuit's Tax professional customers by connecting them with seasonal staff through a match-making service based on peer specialization.
Tax preparation is a seasonal business. We observed that a lot of our tax firms were unable to predict their staffing needs for the upcoming tax season. During the tax season, hiring becomes even more painful as they are already working towards the tax deadline. Our goal was to solve this problem for Intuit's Tax professional customers by connecting them with seasonal staff through a match-making service based on peer specialization.
My role was to conceptualize and prototype the experience and test that with customers.
Meet our customer, Andrew Lawson
Meet our customer, Andrew Lawson
Andrew is a Certified Tax Professional with 12 years of experience. Andrew is the owner of a multi-service Tax firm, Lawson LLC. They offer Tax consulting, Bookkeeping, and Payroll services.
His Tax Firm, a small business
4 full-time employees including 2 Tax preparers and 1 office administrator.
They do about 500 Tax returns a year.
Business goals
Grow the client base even more. The firm already grew 20% this year.
Needs
Finding passionate and experienced Tax professionals to support his additional client base.
Customer Problem Statement
Customer Problem Statement
I am the owner of a successful, organically growing professional tax firm that uses Intuit software for my tax needs, which are of varying complexity.
I'm trying to keep up with my work and maintain a reasonable schedule while providing the best service to my clients.
But, it’s really hard to find qualified employees to do the work I need to be done throughout the year, especially during peak tax season,
because I just can’t find the right talent that knows the software my firm uses,
which makes me feel frustrated, tired, and worn down, even though my firm is doing well.
Ideal State
Ideal State
In the ideal state, I can easily, quickly and confidently find, hire, and manage employees, in a way that meets the demands of my business, so I can manage my workload more efficiently, continue to grow my business, and work a reasonable schedule throughout the year so my clients and I can prosper.
Insight from a customer survey
Insight from a customer survey
Based on a survey with 320 Accountants, 36% stated they are interested in hiring temporary staff and 75% are looking for help with bookkeeping and tax preparation.
Based on a survey with 320 Accountants, 36% stated they are interested in hiring temporary staff and 75% are looking for help with bookkeeping and tax preparation.
We have identified a unique opportunity to solve this customer pain point by leveraging our network of tax professionals.
We have identified a unique opportunity to solve this customer pain point by leveraging our network of tax professionals.
We started by identifying and proving out the most critical assumptions.
We started by identifying and proving out the most critical assumptions.
Critical assumption 1
Critical assumption 1
Tax firms using Intuit pro tax software will choose to hire temporary resources from Intuit because we can provide talent from our customer base that already uses the firm owners' tax software.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
If we provide a qualified pool of tax professionals to the firms looking for help, then 10% of those firms will hire via our solution.
Experiment
Experiment
Drive traffic to a landing page where tax professionals can sign up for the program.
How do we measure success?
How do we measure success?
10% of tax professionals that visit the dry test will sign up.
Outcome of the experiment
Outcome of the experiment
We received a 38% conversion on the "Start matching" button, which exceeded our goal of 10%.
Critical assumption 2
Critical assumption 2
Intuit can deliver a quality match for both accountants looking to hire and the job seekers
Hypothesis
Hypothesis
If we offer a matching platform for tax professionals, then Intuit can match 75% of their staffing requests with qualified tax professionals looking for work.
Experiment
Experiment
Manually match tax professionals via concierge experiment and measure likelihood to recommend supply.
How do we measure success?
How do we measure success?
75% of staffing requests matched and a NPS >50
Outcome of the experiment
Outcome of the experiment
3 of 5 customers went ahead and hired the talent Intuit matched.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 45
Based on the learnings from these two experiments, we decided to put together a paper prototype of the experience and show that to customers to provoke their thoughts.
Based on the learnings from these two experiments, we decided to put together a paper prototype of the experience and show that to customers to provoke their thoughts.
Paper prototype of the matchmaking experience
Paper prototype of the matchmaking experience
Automating the simple Tax returns
Automating the simple Tax returns
We wanted to test if we could automate simple tax returns for accountants. Automation saves them time so that they get to focus more on the complicated returns. We learned that customers do not trust a solution that automates tax returns. Also, this was a heavy lift for the team to pull off with the current tech architecture. So we decided to focus on staff augmentation for now.
Prototype testing with target customers
Prototype testing with target customers
We tested the paper prototypes with 5 target customers and collected qualitative feedback. Iterated the staff augmentation prototype based on the feedback.
Outcome of the project
Outcome of the project
Though there was got good traction from customers on the value propositions and the product experience, we did not continue working on this project due to changes in business priorities.
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