Accenture opens Michigan tax call center

Accenture Ltd. has implemented a taxpayer call center for the Michigan Department of Treasury in four months as part of an ongoing eight-year, $10 million project, the company announced March 18.

The fully operational call center is staffed by 80 trained customer service representatives. Through the call center, Michigan taxpayers can receive answers to questions about business and individual income tax laws, rules and regulations.

The center's new system is based in part on e-government applications developed by Siebel Systems Inc. of San Mateo, Calif.

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Accenture integrated the applications with the department's existing tax databases, thus enabling customer service representatives to provide answers to routine questions while the taxpayer is on the phone. For more complex issues, a customer service request is created to research the matter and follow up with additional information.

Future project milestones include adding more customer self-service capabilities via the Web and e-mail, Accenture said. Using these new features, taxpayers will be able to use the Web to interact with the Treasury Department, view account data and submit e-mail forms for additional service requests.

Accenture has more than 75,000 employees and annual revenue of $11.4 billion. Siebel Systems has more than 7,000 employees and annual revenue of $2 billion, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas.