With IRS capacity shrinking amid budget cuts and government shutdowns, filers are increasingly turning to tax service providers to manage uncertainty. This spike, driven by seasonal demand and systemic delays, is testing providers’ ability to scale customer support under pressure.
To turn this challenge into an opportunity, providers need scalable operations and agility that maintain CX quality and efficiency while building customer trust and loyalty during tax season.
Why Scale Before Demand Peaks
When support teams are unprepared for seasonal surges brought by tax season, filers experience delays, errors, and slower resolutions due to backlogs. To avoid these issues, providers must expand capacity through proactive staffing and targeted training to build a stronger talent pipeline and manage volume spikes efficiently.
Uncertainty Drives a Surge in Calls
The IRS is currently operating at half capacity due to the recent government shutdown. As gridlock slows public services, customers are increasingly expected to turn to tax service providers for faster, more reliable help with paperwork, payments, verifications, and compliance.
This rising demand is expected to strain support teams, and widening workforce gaps will further heighten pressure on providers already anticipating high call volumes in the coming months. These challenges highlight the need for providers to optimize workload planning, reduce recruitment costs, and strengthen service quality ahead of tax season.
Complexity Raises Pressure
Scaling capacity during peak season introduces new layers of complexity, and without modern infrastructure and data integration expertise to support fast and wide-scale ramps, providers struggle to respond to changes quickly.
Meanwhile, with 25% of filers uncertain about their tax liabilities and fearing they may owe more than expected, limited IRS support is amplifying the demand for timely, accurate resolutions.
But the challenge goes beyond operational scalability. Customers now seek clear, intuitive filing experiences, with 81% seeing little difference in cost or quality between DIY and large companies as of 2025. This shows that scaling support teams alone is not enough. Providers must also simplify workflows to retain their competitive edge.
Bad CX Drives Churn
As of 2025, the IRS expects over a million returns per hour amid staff shortages, pushing customers to seek more reliable and accurate support from providers. Meeting this demand requires the right strategy. As filing errors expose customers to costly liabilities, support teams must sustain high-quality service even as volumes surge.
Without proper staffing, training, and systems in place, support teams can quickly become overwhelmed. This can result in inconsistent or delayed support that results in poor customer experience, costing companies up to $856 billion every year.
Stricter Rules, Heavier Fines
Operating beyond capacity comes at a cost. As workloads surge, support teams are stretched thin and are more likely to overlook security protocols. Cybercriminals exploit these gaps, making providers 30% more vulnerable to breaches during peak periods.
Regulatory scrutiny only heightens the risk. When overextended staff struggle to maintain compliance, even small oversights can result in fines of up to $100,000 under the NTC Safeguard Rule. As providers scale customer support for seasonal demand, neglecting security at any point risks legal, financial, and reputational fallout.
How to Deliver Empathetic, Accurate Support at Scale
As customers face a wave of changes, tax service providers should deploy scaling strategies that provide fast, reliable, and smart solutions to make tax filing easier. This approach stabilizes operations, ensures efficient use of resources, and maintains consistent, high-quality service during tax season.
Build Agile Teams to Handle Seasonal Peaks
With IRS workforce reductions driving surges in call volume, agile tax service providers stand out by delivering faster, more accurate support amid industry-wide slowdown.
Through hybrid outsourcing models, they can tap nearshore or offshore talent to expand coverage without disruptions, even under pressure. Meanwhile, AI-powered talent acquisition and simulated training shorten onboarding and reduce training costs, ensuring new agents are ready to take calls sooner.
This combination of flexible staffing and tech-enablement allows providers to scale efficiently while maintaining service quality during peak filing periods.
Enhance Human CX with Technology for Smarter, Simpler Filing
Each tax season brings a slew of regulatory changes and complex filing rules that raise the stakes for accuracy. But as call volumes surge, the risk for human error also rises. That’s where technology adds real value.
Through automation, providers can streamline document processing and perform real-time accuracy checks, reducing errors at scale. Not only does this increase agent bandwidth, allowing champions to handle larger workloads with greater accuracy without adding headcount, but it also lets them focus more on delivering empathetic, high-quality support.
Additionally, AI-simulated training helps champions gain skills and confidence to provide high-quality support before their first call. This makes scaling faster while maintaining support quality more efficient.
Lastly, self-service portals offer customers 24/7 access to information, reducing call volumes. Altogether, these technologies create enhancements that allow champions to double down on the human side of CX, a very important albeit challenging feat during ramp-ups.
Champion Security and Compliance
Scaling fast under tight deadlines can leave security and compliance exposed, risking legal, financial, and reputational damage for tax service providers.
To scale responsibly, providers must prioritize due diligence and maintain strict adherence to industry standards such as PCI DSS, SSAE 18, and SOC 2 Type II, ensuring both regulatory compliance and customer trust.
Partnering with CX experts who bring established compliance frameworks, proven technology, and experienced teams can help providers meet these requirements and scale with confidence.
Scaling Without Losing Sight of What Matters
True scaling doesn’t trade customer experience for volume—it satisfies both. Below are strategies that show how to strike that balance for the upcoming tax season.
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Focus on Customer Experience
Make customer-centricity the foundation of every decision, discussion, and interaction. Scaling with this mindset ensures solutions meet customer needs while strengthening relationships.
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Prioritize Consistency
Build SOPs, SLAs, and CX protocols to ensure reliability regardless of channels and locations. Doing so preserves quality even during high demand or rapid growth.
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Build a People-First Culture
Support teams are the face of the brand. Thus, giving them the right resources and decision-making authority ensures faster issue resolution, consistent service, and exceptional customer experiences as the business expands.
Preparing for IRS Changes: Fast, Seamless Interactions Needed
As the government shutdown enters its fifth week, deadlines remain unchanged, and refunds are expected to be delayed for the 2026 tax season. This is likely to heighten customer frustration and anxiety as they navigate mounting uncertainty.
Compounding this challenge, the IRS is phasing out paper refund checks and moving to e-filings. While some customers are digitally savvy, many struggle to adapt, and the introduction of new income tax brackets next year will only add to their confusion.
With limited IRS support, providers are being pushed to scale their teams to handle the surge in customers seeking real-time, accurate guidance. However, expanding capacity while ensuring seamless tax-filing experiences can be costly. Partnering with CX experts with extensive experience in tax can help them offer timely, tailored support, allowing filers to prepare for changes and access help as needed.
At Everise, we combine seasonal staffing strategies, tax season expertise, and EverAI to help providers deliver fast, accurate, and better customer support. This flexible model enables providers to manage demand confidently, guide filers through complex tax situations, and strengthen operational agility and efficiency ahead of peak season.
