Page 414 - TaxAdviser_2022

Technical support

All products ATX CCH Axcess Tax CCH ProSystem fx Drake Tax Lacerte ProSeries UltraTax CS

Did you need technical support?* 76.5% 63.5% 79.0% 80.1% 83.9% 79.7% 61.4% 79.2%
How easy was it to get? 3.6 3.3 3.0 3.2 4.7 3.7 3.6 2.9
How good was it? 3.7 3.5 3.3 3.5 4.5 3.8 3.7 3.3
Received support by: †
Phone 91.0% 86.3% 84.4% 86.4% 91.8% 95.2% 95.0% 91.8%
Email 28.0% 31.5% 44.5% 39.2% 23.9% 17.6% 10.0% 34.2%
Live chat/IM 30.0% 32.9% 59.4% 39.2% 14.1% 20.7% 24.3% 35.2%
Other 3.3% 2.7% 5.5% 2.4% 1.6% 4.3% 5.0% 2.8%
* Percentage of each product’s users answering “yes.”
† Percentage of those users who received support; multiple answers permitted.
All other answers: Average rating on a 1–5 scale, with 5 being the best.

appreciated its cloud-based operation, how they rated that training, ATX users training, and these respondents also
with three write-in “other likes” men- had training least often at 11.3%. Most gave that training the highest rating of
tioning that feature as a plus.) likely to have received training were any of the major products, 4.5. ■
Technical support was most often users of CCH Axcess Tax at 62.3%,
obtained by telephone rather than by although they had the next-to-lowest
electronic means (see the table “Techni- opinion of it at a rating of 3.8 (the low- Contributor
cal Support”). For all the major prod- est was for CCH ProSystem fx at 3.6,
ucts, 91% of users who needed technical with fewer than one-third, 32%, receiv- Paul Bonner is a Tax Adviser
support accessed it by phone, with 30% ing training). Complaints about train- senior news writer. For more
accessing it by live chat or instant mes- ing also turned up in “other dislikes” for information on this article, contact
saging (IM) and 28% by email. CCH several of the products. Almost a major- thetaxadviser@aicpa.org.
Axcess Tax users were by far the most ity of Drake Tax users, 49.7%, received
likely to use chat/IM for technical sup-
port, with 59.4% reporting they did so.
Ideally, users of tax software would
not need technical support at all. In re-
ality, however, the majority of users did
need it, although the percentage requir-
ing support was lowest for ProSeries at
61.4% and ATX at 63.5%. In keeping
with Drake Tax users’ approval in the
“Top Likes” table for its support, that
software received the highest ratings for
ease in getting support (4.7) and for its
quality (4.5).
Asked whether they received train-
ing in use of their software and, if so,

www.thetaxadviser.com August 2022 31