Intuit Accountants News Central
You Have a Voice: Suggestions to Improve Intuit® Products
I’ve been at Intuit® a long time (almost 12 years) and worked in a variety of business units, but one thing is consistent across all of them: we actively engage with and learn from our customers. I joined the Accounting Professional Division (APD) in 2005, and APD provides a unique opportunity to learn from our customers. Accounting Professionals not only buy our products; they also recommend them to their small business customers as well. As a result, accountants are a wealth of information.
There are three key programs I would like to focus on for this article: 1) Intuit Accountant Council, 2) Follow Me to the Office (FMO) and 3) User Voice.
The Intuit Accountant Council started about 10 years ago and is comprised of a small group of customers who are selected to serve a two-year term. We meet with Council members twice yearly at the Intuit headquarters in California for in-depth discussions on our products and services. Members are selected based on a number of factors, including firm profile and the work they provide to their customers, firm size and location, as well as what Intuit products are used. While all customers on Council use at least one Intuit product, we do not only have “Intuit shops” on the Council. To ensure we get balanced feedback, we actively recruit council members who use competitor products, and make sure council members are comfortable sharing their opinion and speaking opening in front of large groups.
The two-day meetings are intensive and cover quite a bit of material. All members are under non-disclosure agreements, which allows us to share a broad range of information, including our product roadmap, upcoming product release information and product concepts. We often utilize voting during the meeting to help us stack and rank suggestions, and get clarity on what is most important. We are always taking applications for council, so please apply if interested.
A Follow Me to the Office (FMO) is just what the name suggests, a visit from Intuit to your office. These are done all over the country and by many of the product teams in APD. FMOs are used for a variety of reasons. Often, when we are just starting work on a new project, and need a better understanding of current customer behavior, we’ll go and visit actual accountants to observe their current workflow around specific tasks. Watching customers allows us to see firsthand what actions they are taking, and provides insights into areas where there are opportunities to improve.
FMOs are also used by existing product teams. Product managers and engineers may also go on FMOs to better understand current product usage and gauge steps in the workflow that could benefit from reduced complexity or improvements. We’ve learned over the years that nothing compares to watching customers use our products. I’ve been to follow-me homes where a customer states that “everything works great,” while switching from the software to paper and pencil to complete the task. FMOs provides numerous learnings and “ah-ha” moments that wouldn’t be discovered in focus groups or from a survey. We are always looking for FMO candidates, so if you are interested please email Grace Monton.
Finally, let me tell you about the User Voice. User voice is a web application that allows our tax product users to submit feature requests and vote on the submissions they think would be the most beneficial to them. Anyone can submit ideas to user voice and anyone can vote as long as they submit their email address. Users are given a specific number of votes each year to use as they see fit, and can give ideas 1-3 votes depending on how important they feel the suggestion is. Our product management team will review these suggestions and make assessments based on customer needs and our product strategy. The team then follows up on the forum with suggestions that are being implemented. Check out the ProSeries® or Lacerte® User Voice page to see a list of suggestions already made, what suggestions are most popular and to suggest additional items.
These are just a couple of ways we work with our customers to get input for product and service improvements. If you are passionate about giving feedback, I encourage you to check out these options and apply for Accountant Council.
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