Intuit
Company: Intuit QuickBook: Online Edition, Mountain View, CA
Company Description: QuickBooks: Online Edition (QB: OE) is Intuit’s online version of the popular business financial management solution for small and midsize companies.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best New Product or Service
Nomination Title: Intuit, QuickBooks: Online Edition
1. Tell the story of this nominated product or service (up to 500 words): its function, its features and benefits, and how it differs from competitive offerings. Include in your description the date in 2004 on which this product or service was introduced to the U.S. marketplace:
QuickBooks: Online Edition (QB: OE) is Intuit’s online version of the popular
business financial management solution for small and midsize companies. QB:
OE is one of the most innovative and fastest growing business units within Intuit,
having doubled the number of customers over the last year to more than 25,000.
The March 2004 release of QB: OE included more than seven new features and
continued to build upon QB:OE’s success. Customers are passionate about
QuickBooks: Online Edition and are speaking out: QB: OE has some of the
highest customer satisfaction numbers at Intuit.The QB: OE team was not content to simply port the desktop version of
QuickBooks to the web. Instead they developed an online solution from the ground
up, ensuring that QB: OE maximizes the flexibility of the Internet.QB: OE has innovative, industry-leading customer support. Customer service is
often one of the most challenging departments for a company to manage and it is
crucial to get it right because the quality of customer service can make or break a
company.The QB: OE team has developed a unique model for its customer service that
ensures customers receive the best care possible. Unique practices that the
team has put in place to ensure top notch customer service include:
No such thing as hold: Customers waiting to speak with a representative is par for
the course for many customer service organizations. The QB: OE service team
recognized that its customers’ time should not be used to speak with someone.
Instead, a QB: OE customer who has a question emails the service team and
indicates whether they want to be called or emailed in return. The QB OE service
representative reviews the question, makes sure that s/he knows the answer and
then promptly contacts the customer using the preferred method. The
representatives also prioritize requests to make sure that the most urgent ones
are serviced first.Happy customer service representatives = happy customers – QB OE customer
service representatives are a nationally distributed workforce. There is no call
center – the representatives work from home. The incredible flexibility of this
arrangement makes for very happy employees. This high level of satisfaction
translates into a high level of enthusiasm for their jobs and a high level of
customer
service.Dedicated service representatives – Oftentimes at a call center, employees are
required to be knowledgeable about many products. The QB OE representatives
only support QB OE, so they have a very in depth level of knowledge on the
service. The QB OE service representatives also specialize in solving different
types of issues and route customer requests to the most knowledgeable
representative.Empowered service representatives – Another common complaint of call centers is
that service representatives do not have the authority to make decisions or solve
customer problems without appealing to a manger. Not so with QB OE where the
mantra is “Do what it takes to get it done.” Service representatives get to use
their own judgment about how best to service the customer without having to ask their supervisor for permission.Coupled with excellent customer service, below are some features that contribute
to the proliferation of QuickBooks: Online Edition:Anytime, anywhere access: via the web from home, the office or on the road; links
multiple locations without a network, adds users when growing the business and
enables collaboration with accountants, board of directors and advisorsEasy management of the business: tracks bills, time and expenses by employees
and customers, writes checks and invoices customers, manages payroll online,
accepts credit cards and tracks cash sales and creates ‘what if’ scenarios for
evaluation and planning purposesFree of Software limitations: gets customers up and running in ten minutes,
imports existing data automatically from QuickBooks and includes support at no
extra chargeProtection of Data: keeps data in firewall-protected servers in a facility equipped
with industrial-strength protection against fire and disasters and no one sees the
data other than the user, not even QuickBooks employeesProof – Customers Are Catching on:
• “QB Online offers the best support on the planet!” -- Internet Systems
Consortium, Inc.
• "Having used several other business application in the last 20 years, there is no
other application with as much to offer, and the support is the best I have ever
received" -- Diggity Dog Landscape Support Services "
• “QuickBooks Online Edition is fast, it is just as easy as the desktop version,
and the free support is hands-down incomparably the best." -- Leach Construction.
• “QuickBooks Online Edition is a very user friendly, easy to learn and use
program with the most helpful, courteous support staff our company has
encountered.” -- Independent, Inc.
• “I have already told many others they should switch over to this product as I
have found your tech support to be the best in the business and maybe in the world.
Great people providing great service, boy what a switch from the service offered by
others.” -- Tag Mortgage, Inc.
• “With the help of your amazing tech support staff, I cannot say enough wonderful
things about them. I was able to undo an entire year of bad or non-existent
bookkeeping for my small non-profit and catch us up enough to do year end
reports AT year end! What a relief!”
• “Without this service and the great tech support (for accounting dummies like
me) this would never have happened and I would still be struggling to complete
these tasks alone” -- Siamese Rescue Metro
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. You may include links to product photos, service logos, etc. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]:
http://www.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_releases/2004/12-20.html
http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/sbtr/insideqbo.shtml
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that development this nominated product or service:
Paul Rosenfeld is, as Smallbiztechnology.com recently described him, “Intuit’s
Online Software Addict.” He is the general manager of QuickBooks: Online
Edition. Paul's professional passions include being part of a super-smart team and
building new things that challenge the status quo. Entrepreneurialism runs deep in
his blood — he washed cars at 12 years of age to buy video games, founded a
sportswear retail and manufacturing company in college, and ran a landscaping
business with his brother.Paul has also worked for American Express Small Business, a lending internet
start-up for small businesses, and has spent the last four years at Intuit. He
proudly received his degree in Hard Knocks from Life and holds an MBA from New York University. When he's not working, Paul's either playing with his 5-year old son or watching The Sopranos.