2010 Customer Survey
One of the key things we set out to achieve when developing FSAssist, was to design a system from the end-users point of view. To help achieve this, we have relied heavily on feedback from our customers to tailor the program closely to their needs.
One of the ways we gauge this is the annual user survey which we run after the key reporting season has ended in March. We have published the result of the survey on the web site for the last three years so you can tell what the people who actually use the software make of it.
Overall Rating
We ask our customers to give the program an overall mark out of 10 to summarise their general experience of using FSAssist.
The average score this year was a very encouraging 8.7 out of 10 – virtually identical to the mark which they awarded last year. Indeed almost 90% of our users gave the product a score of 8/10 or higher.
Helpline and Support
One of the things we know is very important with a product like this is the backup and support you get if you run into difficulties as the deadline looms up on you. Consequently we put a lot of effort into providing support at the year-end and this is something we have sought to maintain and this effort seems to be reflected in the scores which people have given for the support.
To get a feel for how well the support facilities are performing, we asked people to rate the helpdesk in three key areas: could they get through to someone easily; was the person they spoke to helpful and did they ultimately get their issue resolved.
The scores of 9 out of 10 across the board tend to speak for themselves. Encouragingly the scores have held up consistently over the last 5 years (since these measurements were introduced) despite a marked increase in the number of users of over this period.
How does it compare to other packages?
Around 50% of our customers had previously used another software package to complete their returns prior to using FSAssist. The response was overwhelmingly that FSAssist was a major improvement on what they had experienced before.
The Excel-basis of the program (pioneered by this system) was widely seen as a major attraction, allowing people to complete their returns in a familiar environment. This meant the returns could be produced more quickly and easily than had been the case hitherto.
Something else which was widely picked up on was the fact the system was more transparent and flexible – which meant making specific adjustments to their entries on the forms could be done quickly and without fuss. But moreover because of the program’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get simplicity there was generally more confidence that the output would be correct and accurate.
Training Courses
A recent innovation has been the introduction of our free annual training sessions to help re-familiarise people with the software and also to share best practice to help people get the most out of the software.
The overall scores for the training course were very encouraging - with attendees giving the courses an overall rating of 9/10 - with strong scores across the board.
With people's feedback suggesting they found the sessions useful, we intend to continue running them for the foreseeable future.
What could we improve?
In the main it appears to be the final output process, especially managing the various Word documents and formats which the FSA require you to use. We are looking into finding ways of improving the management of the documents which should speed up the whole printing and output process.
Additionally we are also looking at new ways to overcome the slower performance of some of the key processes in Excel 2007 which some people have reported. Redesigning some of the processes to work with the new structure of Office 2007 has delivered some encouraging results in testing and we are confident people will see an improvement next year.
The revisions to the program will appear with the preview version of software when it is released in the autumn.
Sample Comments:
One or two sample comments from our customers about FSAssist this year:
Finally, we would like to thank all of our customers who took the time to complete the survey for providing us with their views and opinions.
