TurboTax
Full Service

by John Wayne Hill

Turning tax from software into a human-led service, by making the expert the product.

Role Principal Product Designer

Team 5 PMs, 12 Engineers, Myself as Designer & Director

Timeline 1.5 years for Verified Pro & ~6 months Full Service revamp

Overview

I joined TurboTax as the first and only dedicated designer on Verified Pro, a brand new, dual-sided marketplace. Over the next two years that work grew into a much bigger bet: pivoting Full Service from a software experience into a human-led product built to win the prior-year assisted market. I led the design from provocation through vision prototype to launch, surviving a mid-stream reorg along the way, and helped shape the strategy the org ultimately moved forward with.

Intuit

TurboTax Full Service

Roughly 13.9M people leave a tax professional each year and go looking for a new one. Today that search starts with Google and a string of screening phone calls, and it can take weeks or even years.
TurboTax's assisted product was still software-first, at a moment when prior-year assisted customers wanted the confidence of a real, trusted expert.
Customers needed to feel they were in the right place, matched to the right person for their specific tax situation, before they would commit.
The experience had to earn trust fast, reduce fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and make choosing an expert feel credible rather than random.
And it had to do all of this while the business, the team, and the org chart were shifting underneath it.

illustration of a person searching through profiles to find the right expert

Starting with Verified Pro

Verified Pro was the tip of the spear, and how I got to TurboTax in the first place. (The hint: it wasn't to work on taxes.) It was a genuine 0-to-1 effort with a long list of firsts for Intuit: a dual-sided marketplace matching consumers with independent tax pros based on their situation, location, and more, with the ability to book a call, get started, and find another pro if the first wasn't the right fit.

I was the only dedicated designer, working with a contract content designer and a borrowed researcher, partnering with five product managers, a design manager, and twelve engineers, while acting as design lead. Verified Pro proved the core insight that would define everything after it: when customers detach from one pro, half of them come back and work with another. People wanted the human, not just the software.

Verified Pro shipped to 84 NPS, a 21% referral share against a 5.2% forecast, and 72 PRS.

TurboTax Verified Pro dual-sided marketplace matching consumers with independent tax pros

Verified Pro: a 0-to-1 dual-sided marketplace matching consumers with the right independent tax pro.

Provoking a New Vision

At the end of the season, as we iterated on Verified Pro for the next year, my provocations pushed hard on the idea of shopping for an expert, drawing inspiration from experiences like Airbnb. Then, in early May, I felt the ground start to shift. Sensing change coming, I started provoking on a bigger question: what if Verified Pro and Full Service were one product? How could independent pros and TurboTax's own experts come together in a single place for consumers to shop?

“The provocations on pro profile, green zone accounts, and starting with a pro are the strategy moving forward.”

Cathleen Ryan, Intuit

Then the ground actually shifted. In May, Consumer Group reorganized and shelved the Verified Pro program with little support or resources. Ninety-five percent of the team was moved into Full Service. The message was essentially: now do it again. Rather than treat that as a setback, I used the lull to push my combined Verified Pro plus Full Service idea further, into a brand new app with the expert front and center. How might we make this experience feel more emotional?

The vision prototype in action.

The Vision Prototype

I built a full end-to-end prototype of the Full Service vision, grounded in a single principle: the expert is the product.

The prototype came directly from my own hands-on design work and from leading through influence to bring the rest of the org along. It walked through the entire journey: shopping for an expert, getting matched, and working together in a brand new, human-led app. I reviewed it with Consumer Group SLT, CEO Sasan Goodarzi, and Intuit founder Scott Cook.

“This is epic. Full stop.”

Sasan Goodarzi, CEO, Intuit

“The current conventional experience won't do it. You might be onto a breakthrough.”

Scott Cook, Founder, Intuit

Shopping for an Expert

Every screen was designed to build trust and reduce fear, using specific behavioral principles as tools rather than decoration. The experience opened by leading with experts for your local situation, gathered what we needed to make the right match, and even used a deliberate short delay to make our recommendations feel considered rather than random.

TurboTax Full Service intro screen leading with local experts

Lead with experts. A new intro screen showed we have experts for your local situation and oriented customers that they're in the right product. Aesthetic-usability effect, and the power of first impressions.

TurboTax Full Service tax situation questions to match customers with the right expert

Tax situation questions. We gathered what we needed to match customers with the right expert, then replayed that information later in our recommendations to show we listened.

TurboTax Full Service intentional delay before showing expert recommendations

Intentional friction. A deliberate short delay before showing recommendations made the matches feel more credible and increased match satisfaction. Delay for credibility.

Meeting Your Match

The payoff moment was designed to feel human. We built emotional anticipation before the reveal, showed up to three recommended experts alongside the data we know drives confidence, and let customers go deeper into each expert before committing to the relationship.

TurboTax Full Service blurred face reveal building emotional anticipation for the expert match

A friendly, familiar payoff. We built emotional anticipation with a blurred face, then revealed recommended experts alongside the data we know drives confidence. Peak-end rule.

TurboTax Full Service showing up to three experts to choose from

Choice of experts. Rather than a single recommendation, we showed up to three experts to choose from, biasing toward experts available right now. Hick's law.

TurboTax Full Service expert detail view with customer reviews and verbatim

Go deeper. Customers could dig into each expert to see more, including customer reviews and verbatim.

Getting to Work

Choosing an expert created an engagement, the beginning of a real working relationship. Inside the Full Service Hub we connected customers to their expert automatically over chat, and taxes usually began with a one-way video call so experts could gather what they needed and help customers pull their documents together.

TurboTax Full Service creating an engagement after choosing an expert

Getting started. Choosing an expert created an engagement, gathering the additional information a real working relationship required.

TurboTax Full Service Hub connecting customers to their expert automatically over chat

Auto-pop chat. Once inside the Full Service Hub, we connected customers to their expert automatically over chat, then let them choose how to proceed.

TurboTax Full Service one-way video call to start the tax engagement

Video call to start. Taxes usually began with a one-way video call, letting experts gather what they needed and help customers pull together their documents.

Results

We took everything we learned from Verified Pro and everything we knew about prior-year assisted customers and used it to disrupt the Full Service product, launching to an unprecedented 50% of customers in early tax season. The new shopping experience pulled dramatically more people into engagements and expert connections, and converted them at a higher rate end to end.

Metrics

Launched to an unprecedented 50% of customers in early tax season
Engagement creation: 2x baseline
Expert connection: 45.40% vs 20.50%
Start to tax prep: 18.80% vs 13.60%
Start to close: 11.37% vs 9.26%
ARPC: $336.09 vs $319.76

illustration of a person holding a note with a checkmark and an arrow pointing up

Contribution

My Role

First and only dedicated designer on Verified Pro, acting as design lead

Provoked and prototyped the combined Verified Pro plus Full Service vision

Designed the end-to-end Full Service experience around the expert as the product

Led through influence across SLT, the CEO, and the founder to align the org

Carried the work through a reorg and into a launch that reached half of early-season customers

Additional Details In Person

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