Research Exploring Customer Experience and Costly Behaviours

The research aims to explore the link between customers' experience interacting with us and their behaviour - whether they interact in a way that is costly to HMRC and themselves.

This research is needed because CIDD has been challenged by the Customer Experience Committee to demonstrate the fiscal benefits of a focus on customer experience. This research will help us understand how the experience of small businesses influences behaviours which are costly to them and HMRC, with the aim of identifying opportunities to change customer behaviour and reduce costs. Costly behaviours refers to where a customer interaction results in additional or avoidable HMRC costs.

Currently, the ISBA provides a useful measure of customers' overall experience in the last 12 months, their wider perceptions of HMRC and what they think of key issues such as compliance. However, the data does not inform the department about how respondents' views or experiences of interacting with HMRC are linked to costly behaviours.