From the SECU members...
... really hate to bother you, but.
Here's the test question on tax prep from Chapter 22 [link]:
✅ "If your job, your career, your future at SECU (let alone the mortgage, car payment, childcare, and that long hoped for cruise!) depended on you solving those tax prep operational difficulties in the next 90 days, could you do it?"
😎 You don't have to comment on that question, be glad to answer it for you: "Yes, h*ll yes!" Over several decades at SECU, we all saw the improbable, the difficult, even seemingly impossible challenges overcome time after time - at local branches and at the regional, organizational levels.
Never saw the SECU staff fail - stumble and misstep, sure; fumble the ball, yep; err occasionally, oh yes; but persist? - without question! And their record of performance and success over the first 85 years speaks for itself.
As you've read in the comments, the tax prep program was becoming an operational problem for the branch staffs - could probably put a good bit of that blame on a highly disruptive pandemic! SECU management "for whatever reasons" ignored the branch requests for system improvements, more staff, better training. The "for whatever reasons" definitely weren't lack of demand from the SECU members (the 100,000+!), lack of "profitability" and member savings, lack of benefit to the North Carolina community (EITC), nor lack of expertise and capability by the SECU staff (see "We Board" comment below!)
But here are the bizarre "whatever reasons" given by the "We Board" for dropping the tax prep program (check out their hubris for yourself on their infamous "Fireside Chat" videos):
"Although our staff diligently and competently prepared tax returns for several years [10+ years], we've come to believe that members are best served by receiving tax preparation services from..." ... someone else!
Current SECU leadership continues to do "market research" on the services SECU members need by using the "raise your hand" method in controlled groups.
When the "We B" group arbitrarily makes a decisive mistake (..."we've come to believe ..."), the actual facts appear to be irrelevant... why bother?
So, who is "The Missing Voice" in this tax prep discussion: Well, 100, 000+ SECU members!
Why don't you ask those 100,000+ members to "raise their hands"?
Wanna bet on how that vote comes out?
