My Long-Running Admiration for TurboTax

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with or endorsement from TurboTax

As a career-long applications developer, I tend to have a critical eye when I'm using systems of almost any kind. For example, national retail chains all have different forms of electronic payment keypads for debit-card purchases, but they vary widely in their usability. Noticing little things like color-coded choices (I'm a huge fan of green for "yes" buttons and red for “no" buttons) reminds me that somewhere, sometime, a human made decisions about how the interface would be designed. I suppose you can tell something about the team that designed an interface by its usability and overall quality; the output reflects their collective aptitude.

This year, as in several (though not all) years past, I prepared my taxes using the online version of TurboTax. Once again, I walked away duly impressed with the entire experience. From the pre-sales information through the e-File confirmation, the system was practically flawless start-to-finish.

Product Literature and Quality Image

The TurboTax website makes it very easy to select the right products for your situation. The website is modern, clean and professional and it does a good job of getting a lot of information and links organized.

Marketing Accumen

On the Why Choose TurboTax? page, the main header is “You’ll Get the Biggest Refund". A great benefit that the average potential customer can understand, this gets the point across quickly.

"Guides you like a GPS"
This phrase encapsulates the simplicity by which TurboTax steps you through everything you need. I love metaphors and this is timely, concise and truthful.

Copious Contextual Help

While walking through the questions, the site provided “Learn More" and “Explain This" links in context; usually right next to individual selections. The well-written help pop-ups sport highlighted keywords and a convenient Print button.

Unobtrusive suggestive selling

Some sites just don't know when to give up trying to sell you something during checkout. One gripe I have with Amazon is that I think it goes way overboard with cross- and suggestive-selling.

Near the end of the process, TurboTax had a few questions about buying audit insurance or getting a hands-on review of my return. In each case, I could choose the “No Thanks" option and I wasn't bothered again. From a marketing perspective, suggestive selling is a must, and I think that TurboTax gets it right by asking politely.

You don't pay until you file

Employing the “Try if before you buy it" marketing staple, TurboTax proves itself to you before you even pay a dime. The great power of tax filing is that people can be very afraid of doing it wrong; I imagine that their abandonment rate is rather low, and, besides, the only cost is hosting overhead when they need to have the infrastructure for the massive crush in April anyway.

A case study on how to handle a complex rule set

In my first high school computer programming class, we learned how to write programs that did stuff like listing the letters of the alphabet backwards. A few years ago, I built a financial modeling application used to evaluate corporate employee stock option plans against governance guidelines and stock market variables.

If you asked me what I thought was the most complex set of business rules to be translated into a functioning application, it would be hard to argue against the United States tax code. The shear size and complexity, layered with intertwining rules and massive what-if-else scenarios make for a daunting task. Now, take this monumental set of rules and design an interface that the average American is comfortable with.

To say that I respect the development team for TurboTax is a bit of understatement. I know that I wouldn't even want to touch a system of that magnitude, and yet they pull it off almost flawlessly.