The QuickBooks Team Blog

QuickBooks 2006 Performance

With QuickBooks 2006, we have received tremendously positive feedback from most customers. We know, however, that some customers feel the performance is not quite achieving expectations in their specific environments.

Even though this number of customers may be small, it is quite important when it is your business environment being impacted, and therefore it is quite important to us. We are committed to working with each and every customer who might feel they are experiencing performance issues so that we can learn from them and identify ways to achieve our common objective of the "drop dead simplicity" of QuickBooks with the "power and performance" that you seek. If you are having any questions or concerns regarding the performance of QuickBooks 2006, we have created a discussion board that focuses on the QB 2006 Performance issue. 

QuickBooks 2006 Performance Board
 

Users can go there and get tips from other users on what to do, or submit their name to the product team who is working diligently to learn more and help diagnose and resolve any issues. Please know that we read every posting on that board. Every posting presents an opportunity to learn from you, our customers.

"It's About The Products!"

When Steve Jobs retunred to the helm of Apple, he began asking everyone what was wrong with the company. After many random replies, he declared "It's about the products...they suck!". Since that time and the returned focus it has brought, the results are making history. At Intuit, we are also quite passionate about making drop dead simple solutions that solve important customer problems better than any other alternative. This year's release of QuickBooks 2006 represented our biggest leap forward in simplicity since the product was launched over a dozen years ago. While we tackled many areas, including installing a more robust database to increase speed and performance for larger companies, we still have work to do. The overall feedback has been quite positive, but we have also heard from others what they need us to focus on to make it even better. We've tackled many of these opportunities already since releasing the product in November, and continue to work on those things that we and our customers are not 100% convinced are at our goal of making it drop dead simple. It's a journey, not a destination...we know "It's about the products" and we know that the ultimate judge is the customer...we're on the path and are staying the course!

Balancing today and tomorrow

In my last post, I asked for views of what QuickBooks should be capable of delivering in 2015. I received lots of suggestions for the next 10 years, while also receiving very honest comments that suggested we would be better serving customers if we remained focused on making our existing products and services in the current year the best they can be.

I could not agree more, and thankfully it is not an "either/ or" proposition. Instead, it is an "and" challenge, and this is precisely the most important part of our jobs in QuickBooks. Listening to our customers to ensure we have made the current version of QuickBooks better through easier-to-use screens and improved in-product help, to faster performance and stronger functionality. We must continue to achieve these improvements while "skating to where the puck is going", leveraging new best practices and pursuing new innovations that will make our customers' experiences even better in the long term.

It's not unlike our personal lives, where we must balance the needs of today with the planning for future needs like paying off loans, funding college tuitions, paying for weddings or saving for retirement. Finding that balance is always more art than science, but being disciplined about the pursuit is half the battle. I assure you that we will remain disciplined in delivering on both, and will continue to look to our customers to keep us on track!

Brad

What's Your View of 2015?

The world continues to become more exciting as we embrace new thinking and capabilities... software as services, hybrid solutions, and the list goes on. As we assess the evolving market and think about the future of QuickBooks, the possibilities are endless.

I'd like to solicit your views on the "2015 Dream" you have for QuickBooks and how that would feel as a customer 10 years from now? What would be different from today's QB Desktop and QB Online Edition solutions? What solutions or services would you find in a QuickBooks offering line-up if you were charting the course? How would these services be used (devices), purchased (or monetized), supported (e.g., user-contribution systems), etc. Along these lines, are there experiences today that you get from using other products or services that you wish were similarly available with QuickBooks...today?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Brad

Focusing a company of people who care about solving customer problems requires a direct and honest dialogue

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas since my last posting. Your feedback not only gave me input around how to make my blog more meaningful (and improve my skills), but also shared ideas about how we can better serve our QuickBooks customers.

That is what I hope to continue to learn through these postings and dialogues...how I as the General Manager and we as the QuickBooks team can improve the customer experience for all of our customers. This forum is one of the many ways that I try to learn, in addition to our customer and CPA advisory groups, "follow-me-home" studies, research, etc. The key ingredient is unfiltered honesty, which is why I love this forum!

We recently announced we are eliminating mail-in rebates with QuickBooks 2006 for current customers buying a new version or upgrading. We simply lowered the price to the net amount after rebates, for both existing customers and for new customers buying for the first time. We did this based on strong customer feedback that these rebates were a complete hassle. These types of decisions are tough for a bunch of reasons...from working with retail partners to the business reality that now everyone gets the lower net price, even if they would not have submitted a rebate. But we did it, because it was simply the right thing to do.

I know we have more to do. Before I post my next blog, I'd love to hear from you what you would like me to address as a subject in my next blog, or within the QuickBooks business. Thanks in advance for your ideas and suggestions.

Brad Smith

 

Leading from the front

Greetings to all of you reading my first "official blog" as the QuickBooks General Manager. I will warn you in advance that this initial blog will be a little longer than normal in an attempt to set some context around what gets us charged up every day in the QuickBooks world. My commitment is to attempt to post as often as possible, while balancing the requirements of overseeing the QuickBooks businesses.

Being the General Manager of such a storied and fast-moving business as QuickBooks keeps me as busy as a Chihuahua scrambling to bury a bone on a marble floor (yes, that's my Southern upbringing coming out in me). Everyday, I am surrounded by customer-focused zealots who do whatever it takes to simplify our customers' lives by tackling important, but tedious tasks that small businesses describe as "must-do vs. want-to-do". These tasks are often complex, emotionally charged, and have big potential downside if they get it wrong. That's where we come in. The high point of my day is hearing from customers about how one of our employees or products has helped them succeed, or equally as valuable, receiving suggestions around what we can do to be even better. The employees in QuickBooks are a group of people that you will never hear declaring victory...all are too self-aware for that to happen...we know that we can always do better and we are committed to doing so.