Some tax return preparers are doubling as therapists this tax season, comforting clients who are dismayed to find that they will get smaller tax refunds — or worse, will get hit with unexpected tax bills.

H&R Block HRB, +0.14% puts its returning tax pros through 30 hours of training ahead of each filing season to make sure they are up-to-speed — and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress in late 2017 already gave them plenty of homework to do by cutting many deductions and changing the withholding tables.

But this year, agents also underwent “empathy training,” which included a “refund surprise training module” to coach their responses to clients shocked or upset by a lower tax refund or a surprise tax bill, the service told MarketWatch. For example, the new training included listening to a scenario where a client who received a $1,500 refund last year learned that she owed $575 this year because she didn’t adjust her withholdings under the new tax laws.

“Imagine how it would feel if you saw a really big tax bill; you’re not used to owing any money, and now you owe $1,500. And not a lot of people have that laying around,” said Susan Waldron, H&R Block’s director of communications. “An agent might say, ‘I know you are not accustomed to owing the IRS money. Let’s discuss the options that can help.’ A lot of people don’t realize that the IRS has payment plans, and we can help people get set up.”

See: 5 smart tax moves you can still make for your 2018 return

Or in the case of a smaller refund, agents are advised to say something like, “The smaller refund might be a shock this year, and I understand that, but the good news is that this money was actually in your paycheck, and you had use of that money throughout the entire year,” Waldron added. Then agents can give instructions on changing W4 withholdings so that you get more taxes taken out of your paychecks if you do want to get lump refund sum next year.

And plenty of taxpayers are finding themselves in these positions. The individual refunds counted through March 29 were down 0.7%, or $20 less, averaging $2,873 compared with $2,893 during the same period last year, according to the IRS. That’s a marked improvement from Feb. 1, when the first batch of refunds was down 8.4% from last year (averaging $1,865 compared with $2,035.) And recent data from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reported that about half (48%) of households are getting a tax cut greater than $500, compared with what they would have paid under the old tax law.

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Still, about 1.6 million fewer people are getting refunds this year, and the total amount of money the government has refunded is $6 billion below what it was this time last year. And more than one in four respondents (28%) in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said they are paying more taxes under the new tax law; 17% said they are paying less, and the rest said that they don’t know, or that their taxes have barely changed.

“The updated federal-tax withholding tables, released in early 2018, largely reflected the lower tax rates and the increased standard deduction brought about by the new law,” the IRS wrote in a statement. “This generally meant taxpayers had less tax withheld in 2018 and saw more in their paychecks.”

See: New WSJ/NBC poll shows people are not noticing Trump’s tax cuts

But losing certain deductions under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress in late 2017 — such as personal deductions, job search and moving expense deductions, and commuting expenses — have also hit many people hard, even though the standard deduction and the child tax credit increased. The Government Accountability Office expects that about 4.6 million fewer filers will receive tax refunds this season, and another 4.6 million will probably owe money who hadn’t had that experience in the past. So furious taxpayers are sharing their stories on social media in threads such as #neverowedbefore, #taxstory and #GOPtaxscamstories.

And accountants are on the front line, fielding questions and concerns from taxpayers who don’t understand what happened to their usual refunds.

Nathan Rigney, lead tax research analyst and tax refund preparer at H&R Block, told MarketWatch that he’s seen a lot of confusion among clients. So he’s been flexing his listening skills as well as his tax acumen. “When you get your tax return done, you’re sharing a lot of personal information about your life [getting married or divorced, having children, deaths in the family, losing or switching jobs, etc.] so you get into some pretty long conversations,” he said. “You are counseling them … it’s not like you are just mechanical and saying, ‘OK, this is how something affects your tax liability.’ You usually feel a lot of empathy for the client.”

Ted Greenberg, a C.P.A. in New York City, said that his office is spending more time walking clients through their returns this year, and comparing their taxable income, withholdings and deductions from 2017 with the 2018 changes under the new law. “We’re explaining the tax returns in more detail, explaining the rules to people and explaining what doesn’t qualify as a deduction anymore,” he said.

And Arthur J. DaPonte, an audit manager at Raich Ende Malter & Co. LLP, said that his firm has also been “budgeting an increase in the amount of time it’s going to take to prepare returns, as well as the amount of time to explain some of the changes and the new tax structure to business owners,” he told MarketWatch. “We hired more people and brought in different types of skill sets to navigate these changes.”

See: Did you refinance your home mortgage last year? You can still qualify for often-overlooked deductions

The agents at TaxSlayer also underwent “rigorous training” ahead of this tax season “so that they could walk customers through these changes,” Molly Richardson, director of strategic communications for TaxSlayer, told MarketWatch. And last year they began a big educational push online, as well, to explain how the new tax codes would affect certain customers, and to advise them to check whether they were withholding enough. “We published quite a bit of content on our website and on our blog so that there would be accessible articles and resources that customers could read through and be prepared ahead of time,” said Richardson.

H&R Block also published a number of informational guides for taxpayers last year, which Waldron said increased their site traffic 30% year-over-year in October. “People don’t usually think about taxes until January,” she said. “We were really surprised to see people were researching things like the child tax credit in the fall.”

But customer service training can only cushion the blow from an unexpected tax bill just so much. Michelle, a Long Island mother of two who asked to withhold her last name, was blindsided when her accountant revealed that she and her husband owe $3,000 this year – the first time that they have ever owed the IRS – after getting $8,000 back last year. “He was kind about it and offered us a cup of coffee,” she said. “But I feel like if he were really sympathetic, he wouldn’t have charged us $550 to prepare our taxes.”

This article was first published on Feb. 19, and has been updated with the most recent tax refund data.