H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE:HRB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeff Jones: Yes, George, thank you for that question. I mean, obviously, those are things that are out of our control, except to the degree we can educate and communicate to clients, and that’s really where we focus in what we call this off-season of how we deploy training to tax professionals to help them understand in that moment of truth if someone’s outcome has changed why that is and what they can do about it for the next year. So we definitely have taken those steps to get ready for this tax season in addition to the marketing comments that I made earlier with Kartik’s question.

Tony Bowen: Yes. The one thing I would add, George, is last year we saw a pretty big change in, as you said, the amount of refunds and who’s getting refunds. And we’ve essentially believe we’ve got a new baseline going into this year. So we aren’t expecting another drop in the amount of refunds. There’s no major tax solid changes that would drive that. So I think customers kind of understand now kind of what to expect based on last year’s results. And to Jeff’s point, the EITC customers while the refund maybe went down a little bit, they’re all still getting refunds, obviously. And it’s just really about the education side that’s really important.

George Tong: Great. Got it. That’s helpful. And then can you provide your latest thoughts on your pricing strategy with normalization of inflation trends, and how pricing and Assisted in DIY would evolve heading into next year?

Jeff Jones: Absolutely. And as you asked, we kind of split it into two parts. On the assisted side, we believe that we’re able to take low single-digit price increases, which is what’s contemplated in our plan for this year. As you’ve heard me say many times, every year, we reevaluate that based on customer satisfaction and value for price paid metrics. So we feel good about that continued movement, which we’ll do this year. In the DIY business, obviously, it’s more dynamic. There are more factors to consider between core SKUs, early season, late season and attached products. In general, we still see opportunity to maintain a price advantage into it, and we’ll do that again this year and actively market against what we believe our advantage is and how easy it is to switch to H&R Block.

Operator: Our next question comes from Alex Paris of Barrington Research. Your line is open Alex. And alex, please make sure your line is unmuted and if you are on a speaker phone, lift your handset. And I’m at pause just to see if he queues back up. And he has not. I would now like to turn the conference back to Michaella Gallina for closing remarks. Madam?

Michaella Gallina: Thank you, Latif, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes our first quarter 2024 financial results conference call.

Operator: And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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