Lenny Holt, Sr. Vice President, CCH Small Firm Services comments on Consolidation

[HV Ken]

Don't know how many of you return to the "CCH Small Firm Services Consolidates Sales and Support" story at http://www.thetechgap.com/2008/01/cch-small-firm.html, but Lenny Holt, Sr. Vice President, CCH Small Firm Services, posted the following at January 18, 2008 at 03:19 PM:

"I wanted to take an opportunity to apologize to those customers who have had trouble accessing ATX support this week. We have been working around the clock to address the reasons for the temporary problems—most of which were the result of the implementation of a new phone system. Call times have been dramatically reduced today and we believe the issues will be completely resolved by the end of day today. We thank you for your patience and regret any problems you have encountered. We appreciate our customers greatly and we are committed to serving you well by offering the products and services that meet your needs. I also want to reassure all of our customers that we are committed to continuing the ATX product line and that we will do everything necessary to deliver a high level of service for you this tax season and in the future."

Please don't shoot the messenger - just posting this here for all to see. At least we know that CCH is watching.

[Karen Lee]

All I can say:

"Lenny, SHOW ME THE MONEY"

Karen

[Lynn EA USTCP in Louisiana]

Hmmm . . . now I know why I am unable to access the MyAtx website. I need to change my password, etc. and wanted to peruse the knowledgebase. Kept getting an error message no matter which link I clicked on.

Hope they are able to follow through with his stated committment to 1) better customer service, 2) continuing the ATX product line.

Thanks for the post,

Lynn Jacobs, EA

Kenner, LA

[Mel in Hawaii]

We all KNOW that the problems that people have been experiencing haven't been caused by a phone system. It was caused by a untimely decision to shutter operations. True, the phone system may be giving them problems, but the true cause was the decision to shutter the tech support department because if they had done the switchover months ago, those problems would have been eliminated before the season started.

[Jack from Ohio]

Don't know how many of you return to the "CCH Small Firm Services Consolidates Sales and Support" story at http://www.thetechgap.com/2008/01/cch-small-firm.html, but Lenny Holt, Sr. Vice President, CCH Small Firm Services, posted the following at January 18, 2008 at 03:19 PM:

"I wanted to take an opportunity to apologize to those customers who have had trouble accessing ATX support this week. We have been working around the clock to address the reasons for the temporary problems—most of which were the result of the implementation of a new phone system. Call times have been dramatically reduced today and we believe the issues will be completely resolved by the end of day today. We thank you for your patience and regret any problems you have encountered. We appreciate our customers greatly and we are committed to serving you well by offering the products and services that meet your needs. I also want to reassure all of our customers that we are committed to continuing the ATX product line and that we will do everything necessary to deliver a high level of service for you this tax season and in the future."

Where does he mention "tech support" (term used half-heartedly) personnel that are supposed to help me with an income tax preparation program, and did NOT know the purpose of Schedule C. I had 3 different "techs" on the phone (99 minutes) and none of the three knew what Schedule C was for. My problem finally got addressed when they sent an e-mail and my customer's file to William Tasker. He answered to me in an e-mail in less than 20 minutes. I sent him an additional question about the issue, and he answered that in less than 5 minutes.

This situation was NOT a telephone system problem. I am offended that this executive thinks I am that ignorant.

[Slappy Tax]

This guy's answer ranks right up there with "Your call is very important to us" in terms of believability. Blaming it on the phone system. Man, that's so lame, it's laughable.

[TAXBILLY]

What company in their right mind with put in a "new" phone system just days before the tax season? He must think we're stupid.

taxbilly

[jainen]

>>put in a "new" phone system just days before the tax season?<<

Be fair--you know how the phone company is. They probably called to schedule last October. Then the installers missed the appointment even though an adult was there sometime between 8:30 and 6:30 (they stopped to smoke a joint). They made it the second time but didn't have the right adapter on the truck. Meanwhile the sales department called with an upgrade offer so they started over again. Turns out the upgrade requires a new kind of electrical circuit so it won't damage the computer network. Then all the crews got called out to repair storm damage (office Christmas party). They finally got everything hooked up just after the first of the year, but nobody could work it because the manual is written in regional Chinese ideograms.

[Slappy Tax]

Plus tech support for their new phone system is in India

[TAXBILLY]

Good one jainen!

taxbilly

[kcjenkins]

Too bad they closed it to more comments before I got there! I had several things I wanted to say to him.

Oh well, I'll buy a small part of his answer, that being that AFTER they made the dumb decision to close ATX tech support and transfer a small part of it to GA, IN LATE DEC, they found that they needed to upgrade their phone system to handle the extra load down there. And that ATT was a part of the problem is believable.

But the big problem still was and is the fact that they fired so many of the people who knew the ATX program and how it works. The idea that any tax software support personal can be equally helpful on any other tax software is missing a basic understanding. TaxWise is a very different type of program, so just because someone is competent in how it works does NOT mean that they will be able to handle an ATX problem question.

And after all, tech support in the tax software business is rather different than tech support in most other types of software. Because while tech support is not supposed to be giving advice about tax issues, they do have to have a basic understanding of tax work, before they can really understand when someone calls with an issue about how data is 'flowing' from one form to other forms. It's hard to explain to a tech what the problem is, when they don't even understand why what is actually happening is totally wrong, given the specific tax situation. I've had times in past years, when I was trying to explain why what 'normally' happens is not correct in a specific set of circumstances. Sometimes, I've had to go up a couple of levels, to one of the programmers, who understood tax law enough to understand what the problem was. Dividing the programmers, who are still in Maine and FL, from the tech support, is not going to make things better.

[lbbwest]

Is that the same Lenny that J.B. knows?

[Janitor Bob]

Is that the same Lenny that J.B. knows?

No way...Lenny the pirate would never be dumb enough to mess with tech support prior to tax season

[lbbwest]

Lenny the Pirate is REALLY smart, does he know Jerome and Betty Sue? lbb