Connie Certusi’s GM Blog

[#1]

Hi, everyone.  I would like to ask you a very simple question: “How can we support you better, ensuring that you get the most out of your Peachtree Accounting solution?”  

As you think about your response, realize that the term “support” can take on many roles.  Often times the first thought that comes to mind is traditional telephone support.  I can assure you that we take this support function very seriously and we’re always looking for ways to improve your experience when you call us for help.  We take thousands of calls each year and if you’re one of the ones that has called us in the past year, let me know how we’re doing and most importantly, what we could have done differently to improve your experience.  I can tell you that we continually listen to these suggestions and act on them when possible.  In fact, the change we made last year that provides existing customers with 30 days of support when they purchase an upgrade was introduced due to customer input we received on our satisfaction surveys. 

I would also ask you to think beyond telephone support to other learning systems that we could improve or make available to you.  Learning systems can be delivered in many ways, such as through in-product help/assistance, online training, and even through this community, which allows you to network with other Peachtree customers.   We are going to be focused heavily in the coming year on improving our learning systems and would like your input on where to focus our efforts.   Have you seen other companies take an innovative approach to learning systems?  If so, what did they do and how would you rate the learning experience they provided?   

Thanks in advance for your responses and innovative ideas related to how we can better support you as a Peachtree customer.

Connie Certusi

[#2]

EJV,

If you will give me your phone number I will have someone give you a call.

Connie

[#3]

I have left the office and am now at home. If you could have someone call me in the morning, Friday, 1/9/09, after 7:30AM on my cell, 757-810-4011, I will be most greatful.
Thanks!

[#4]

I will. thx

[#5]

“How can we support you better, ensuring that you get the most out of your Peachtree Accounting solution?”

Well first off someone could take my call. That would certainly help.
This is my first experience working with your company and frankly I am shocked. I worked for a competitor of yours for 13 years and started my own company. I used their product for 6 years but had heard good things about Peachtree so I switched. I wish I had never switched- biggest mistake of my life. Why? Only because no one will take my call for the SIMPLEST request- AN ACTIVATION CODE- NO joke- I cannot get anyone at your company to give me the activation code for the Peachtree Email Writer. Is this ridiculous or what? And on top of it, not only will they not give it to me, but they must be laughing about the fact that they transfer me to Act support, then web support, then customer registration, keep me on hold for 1.5 hours and then hang up on me. I tried your online support and they tell me I'm not eligble for support. Since when is an Activation Code considered support??
Absolutely absurd.

[#6]

Eileen,

I'm more than happy to have someone give you a call if you will provide me with your phone number. We are experiencing high call volume this month as everyone calls in to get their payroll tax tables and receive assistance in closing their year. Even though we heavily staff for this 'peak' season the result is still longer wait times than normal. Again, if you will give me your phone number - I will have someone call you.

Connie

[#7]

I had the 2006 version up until December when I was forced to upgrade to 2009. I do understand the reason for upgrades and I do understand paying something(not as much as you charge) for support. But my problem is this: it's so redundant in the tasks - you can get to the tasks on the top, side, and middle. This makes no sense to me. I have not found any additional features in reports as of yet, only a new way to access them, which really didn't "improve" anything. My latest problem is I purchased 2-part W2 forms from Peachtree/Sage and the 2009 version does not give me the option to print on these forms. Also, I do not not have a 2008 W2 choice - only 2007. I tried the HELP button and it does not give me any help on printing on preprinted W2 forms. I'm completely lost. And I've been on hold for customer support for 1 1/2 hours. Again, I don't mind upgrading once in a while, but I'd like to see some changes or improvements in the features of reports, such as additional information you can receive on them, or putting an account number on the invoice, for example. My reports look the same. The only change so far I've had are difficulty in printing W2's, which not seeing 2008 options I doubt are self inflicted.
I would LOVE some help on printing on the preprinted W2 forms I purchased from this company only 2 months ago.

[#8]

Hello,

I wanted to say thank you for setting up this area to reach out to customers. I can tell you that over the years the downfall to Peachtree has been its customer service. Each year, when it comes time to renew or when we have an issue that requires us to contact support, we dread it, knowing that it is never an easy process. I've tried going online to Peachtree community feedback to share my experience; however, I have never heard anything in return.

This year, we received an email telling us about an "Important Year-End Notification from Peachtree". In order to "keep our historical data easily accessible and totally secure order and install before the end of the year.” We would also receive a discounted price if we ordered now. My accounting team was interested in this feature so I called to place the order.

December 16th, I placed the order. I quickly received a notice telling me my order (#12972118) had been placed and my Visa card charged. Great, that seemed simply.

Just over a week later, the 23rd, I had not heard anything further or received my product, so I decided to call in to check on the order. Upon reaching customer service, I was told my order was never placed. I assured them it was and that I had an order number and would be happy to forward them my email. I was placed on hold for some time while the agent searched. They returned to the phone to tell me again, my order had not been placed. I again offered my order number, copy of my email, etc, but to no avail. I was simply offered to place my order again. This went on for some time until reluctantly, knowing I had little time left to receive and install the program before the end of the year, I agreed. I began to place the new order, but was told I could not receive the same price that I had on my first order, and that the rate would be $300 more. I was further told that I could not have received this price I claimed since it is not in their system. After going back and forth on this issue and being placed on hold for some time, the agent asked me to provide any promo code I may have used. I dug through my emails, located it and offered it to the agent, to which they replied, oh, there it is. No apology for not believing me or wasting my time. They placed my order and assured me that it would be sent out. I asked to have a confirmation sent to me via email asked that the company pay to have it overnighted, since they had lost my original order and I was running out of time with the holidays. Again, I was placed on hold for some time until they must have received an okay to do so. The agent assured me the email confirmation would arrive soon.

Four hours later, I had not received my email confirmation. I decided to call in again to check on the order. The first agent I connected with told me I never placed an order. I immediately asked for a supervisor. The supervisor listened to my story, did some checking and then also told me that I had never placed any orders. Furthermore, she told me there was no record of me even calling in, so I must be mistaken. However, she offered to place an order for me. I thought I had been frustrated before, but this was insane. I asked how there could be no record, who took my credit card, what was going on. Again, she simply stated that I must be mistaken she could not see any credit card on hand and offered to take my order. I explained my frustration at this, explaining that this would be the third order and if I suddenly received over $3,000 accidentally billed to my credit card during the holidays, I would be extremely upset. She assured me this would never happen, but if it did, they would promptly remove the charges. At this point, I was struggling with what to do. I have an accounting team that needs this installed in the next 7-days, minus the holidays and there is no time to go with a different product. I had no choice but to order the product a third time. I placed the order, explained that I needed this over-nighted and needed a guarantee that I would receive a confirmation. I took her name and told her I would call back in 30-minutes if I did not receive the confirmation. She agreed and took my information.

In under 30-minutes, I received a confirmation email with a tracking number. I was so happy; it was finally on its way. The package arrived in 3 days, it was the holidays, and I got the product installed before years end to take advantage of the historical data access.

However, it was not over. Two days ago, two charges, different amounts, showed up on my credit card for two different purchases of Peachtree. I called in to see about getting the one charge removed. However, I was told that I had only been billed one time and that I must be mistaken. Again, I the customer am basically being told I am imagining things? Lying? Making up stories? I assured them I wasn't mistaken and offered to send in a copy of my credit card statement. They agreed, received the statement and told me they would pass it on to accounting. I decided to also check with the Supervisor that had helped me finally take care of my third order and get it to me, thinking she would be able to sort things out. I contacted her, told her my story and she told me that I must be mistaken. I emailed her a quick screen shot of my statement, but she said she would need an actual copy. I quickly email it as well, pointing out that the items in question were on the bottom of page one, and top of page two. Upon receiving my email, the supervisor stated that the statement was inadequate because I had grayed out the dollar amounts. I email her back explaining that I did grey out the transactions that do not pertain to your company, but again, the dollar amounts for the two Peachtree purchases are clearly labeled on the bottom of page one, and top of page two. I asked her to please look again where I mentioned.

Now, 24 hours later from last contact, I have yet to hear from anyone. So far I have put in over 6 hours of my time simply trying to order a product and then be reimbursed for your errorws. The support, the follow through, the willing to take responsibility, basically any aspect of customer service is lacking from all departments and levels. I can not wait any more and will have my credit card company deal with the erroneous charges. When it comes to budget time, I will strongly recommend another product and will pass along this story to ever single person in our industry that I encounter.

Signed,

Frustrated Customer ID: 10700979

[#9]

I can be reached at 630-548-2133
Eileen

[#10]

I would like to say thank you for your response to my post on this board. I recieved an email from Jodi on your team and spoke with her. It wasn't an error code she had worked on before but at least someone finally listened and said they would followup on it.
Today I got a call back from someone that Jodi had requested call me. He resolved the problem within a 10 minutes and was great.

I understand my problem happened at the busiest time of the year and that is unfortunate.
So I do have two recommendations for you in response to your original question.
1) Please tell people up front that they should not register their software when they buy it if they are not ready to start using it right away. This way people won't be disappointed when they don't get support.
2) Maybe in your introduction letter or call, you could tell people that your busiest time of the year is "xxxx" and that you recommend they do not start the implementation during this time.

Thanks for the resolution.
Eileen

[#11]

Eileen,

Thanks for the follow-up post. We will take these suggestions to heart. I will tell you that we (Support) reached out to many of our existing customers in the November timeframe to help them through their year-end process early on to reduce the influx of calls between mid December and end of January. I think this did help some but as you found out, our volumes are still incredibly high. We will continue to work to improve service levels during this timeframe next year. Thanks for reaching out to us via the community and I'm glad we were able to eventually get your issue resolved.

Connie

[#12]

Tax update does not install after the program is closed. It extracts but does not install. My service agreement is over and I don't chose to pay to renew. This problem is a software problem and should be resolved by the software manufacturer at no cost to the customer. It is not a technical issue. If there is a solution I would like to know it. The last time this happened it decided to install as the computer was shutting down but there wasn't enough time. Perhaps you should tell the program that it is supposed to install when the program closes not when the computer shuts down. Hopefully there isn't anything I really need in this update since it doesn't install.

I wasn't too happy about having to upgrade either. Also, I was told I would be sent the stinking new W2 Peachtree decided to make us all use if I agreed to the payroll tax update early. My W2's are gone and I didn't get the forms as promised. I have plenty of the ones that don't work this year for this year if anyone needs them.

Carolyn

[#13]

I am on hold with Vilda Hayes through your Live Chat. She has been "listening" to me for at least 30 minutes now. After being in the queue for about an hour, she asks me if I could log on to the Technical Chat Line. I told her I didn't know where that is, and she never got back to me, so I am still waiting for her, while she is still "listening". What kind of support it this?? I am using 2 computers (which I was told I could do before I bought the product). I need to know how much of the set up do I have to do before I can use a flashdrive to transfer data between the computers.
Can I get some help with this, or should I just send the product back to you for a refund?

[#14]

Varmit6,
Thanks for your post. I've requested that someone from Customer Support follow up with you to make sure you were able to get your questions answered. You may also want to try posting your question in the main Peachtree Accounting forum if you'd like suggestions for how best to move data between two Peachtree installations.

[#15]

CarolynH,

You should receive 30 days of free support after you upgrade. Given it's unclear whether you've installed the upgrade you could do so, register it, and receive the support necessary to address the tax issue. I'm not aware of issues with the update. It could be something environmental in your set up but our technicians are more than willing to help.

Connie

[#16]

hi,

am from the Philippines, would like to inquire if we purchase online w/  packaged type , how much would be the freight and taxes ,

what does packaged mean or inclusions?

[#17]

Kamusta Ka Rose

Salmat Po for your inquiry,

Typically freight and tax vary based on the product recommended for your business needs(freight is typically $25-$30).  Considering the importance of an accounting solution to your business, I would like to have someone work with you to determine which of our products will best meet those needs.  Is there any way we can have someone contact you to understand your needs, recommend a solution and provide you with exact cost?

Terence

[#18]

Is there a federal tax program out there to integrate with Peachtree 2009, like Turbo Tax does with Quickbooks.  If not will you ever have it in any of you upcoming editions.

[#19]

i need help on how to chang my sage package from stand alone to multiuser without lossing my company data

[#20]

Hi Julie,

Peachtree does not yet integrate with tax software, but thank you for the suggestion. Is there a particular product with which you would like to see Peachtree integrate?

Mike Savory

Peachtree Product Manager

[#21]

Hi David,

Yes, you can go from a single user to a multi-user without losing any data. Just call our sales team at 800-554-8900 and they'll explain your options.

Mike Savory

Peachtree Product Manager

[#22]

I would like to add something.  While customer support is very difficult to get, I have an issue to add to Jackie's.  With the support and recommendation of our accounting consultant, we decided not to upgrade from 08 to 09.  It isn't necessary for what we do.  I have been answering almost weekly calls from Peachtree sales and telling them this for the past year!  I'm sure Peachtree has a database and can log customer contacts.  If not, maybe we are all using the wrong accounting software!  I'm getting ready to call back yet another salesman and tell him that if Peachtree can not get their information together to leave me alone for at least a couple of months, I will switch software.  I have never been hounded like this - sometimes 2-3 calls per day.  It's ridiculous and for an organization our size, upgrading each year is unnecessary.

On the other hand, I don't pay for support, so maybe you're trying to get the money out of us another way?????

[#23]

I agree that having to update every 3 years is too soon.  I just upgraded and am having trouble with my back up.  When I backup, it appears to be a document and will not open unless I search for the program.  Before, when I would check to see if I had a good backup it would open automatically.   Now, I wonder if I had a crash if the backup would even work.  Any suggestions?   Also, I think having to pay for customer service is bad and I would not even use Peachtree if my accountant would be agreeable for me to change software.

[#24]

Thanks to everyone who contributed comments to this thread! Please make use of the Peachtree forums for answers to your product questions, or feel free to add comments to other and more recent blog posts.